


The Maid

by Acciofirewhiskey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dysfunctional Family, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Family Feels, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 89,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acciofirewhiskey/pseuds/Acciofirewhiskey
Summary: AU, Belle is Rumpelstiltskin and Baelfire’s maid from "The Return."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr, I'm completing this old fic and adding it to AO3 in honor of OuaT ending.

 

 Belle waits at the crossroads tapping her foot impatiently, because, of course, Eoghain is late with the eggs, _again_.

 

At this rate she will never finish supper on time, and gods know, her employer is nothing if not punctual.

 

She had understood when the paunchy man had declared to her that, under no circumstances, could he be prevailed upon to drive his chicken cart any further into the forest—she hadn’t liked this declaration, but she had understood it. Eoghain, as well as the rest of the town, fears her employer worse than plague, and only slightly less than ogres. Which is saying something.

 

The townspeople call him by many names: savior, monster, Dark One, father, Rumpelstiltskin, _spinner_ —though, the last few are whispered over a dying day’s fire, for rumor has it, the weaver is want to remember his past life, and the villagers even more wanting in his forgetting of their past enmity.

 

They call him by many names; Belle just calls him ‘sir.’

 

She huffs, throwing up her arms in exasperation. She can wait no longer for eggs. The father and son would simply have to suffice themselves with thrown-together potato stew. She trudges back into the forest, the opposite direction of her own, equally isolated homestead, up the hill to the rather fine house she waits upon. The place is no estate (and Belle has seen estates), but it’s the largest in the village, perhaps even the largest out of the surrounding three.

 

She’s not unhappy to work there, and what’s more he pays well—even if thread is a strange currency. At least she can wrap it about her ankle so as not to lose it.

 

Belle is no pampered princess, to be sure, but that doesn’t mean she likes her current line of work (nor, was she a strapping, young, leader of masses and that didn’t stop the duke from ordering her to the front lines), but she must eat, and like all war refugees, she knows hunger all too well.

 

* * *

 

Belle met the spinner only once before his _transformation_. It is just after she and her father Maurice, just two out of the mass of all those displaced by the ongoing fighting, pouring into the (now-secure) lands, stumble into the town that she decides will become their new home, for now at least. They are battered and half-starved, and looking for healing and privacy—particularly the later, her father being what he is.

 

She leaves her father to rest on a stone under the shade of a Birch tree at the edge of the village, while she continues on to search out a place for them. Belle is direct, too direct for a woman, but all the same, she goes into the first yard she sees. She approaches the unimposing house, where a poorly dressed man and boy (soon to be young man) tote a cart laden with battered spools and bolts of homespun clothe. “Excuse me, sir?” she asks.

 

The man looks up and around to both sides, for surely the voice isn’t addressing him. _No one_ would ever address him with the title of ‘sir.’ He looks to her, for it is a woman’s voice, “Are you speaking to me?”

 

“Yes, _you_.” She steps closer. The man takes a step, a limp really, for on closer inspection she sees that he is lame and carries a large walking stick, obscuring her view of the charming boy—she remembers a page with that same chocolate look about him; she remembers the way his brains and blood had looked against the boulders on the battlefields of Avonlea.

 

Belle shakes her head, “I need some help.”

 

“Then, it seems, you’ve come to the wrong man,” he answers, turning his head down from her and goes back to tugging on the cart.

 

“Surely you can help. It’s just, my father and I are looking for a someplace, a home, really, but not in the village.”

 

“Oh, papa, Old Saorla’s house.”

 

“ _Bae_ ,” the father hisses, but the boy is not deterred.

 

The little thing walks up to Belle, and he’s younger than she thought at first, for he still knows no fear of strangers. That’ll change. “It’s in the glen, past the old bridge, made of thatch and close to the stream, what’s more. Old Saorla passed winter last, but the house is still there. The roof too. My friends and I play out by it sometimes.”

 

She smiles her brightest, _courtly_ smile (she’d rather give him her field smile, but she hasn’t seen that one in sometime), “Thank you, good sir.”

 

The boy chuckles, and then, of all the silly things, replies, “No matter, my lady.”

 

Belle almost laughs. She turns to leave, giving a final look to the boy and a nod to the father, who she knows sees the action, but does not acknowledge it. A call stops her.

 

“I’m Baelfire.” The son points to the man she can’t see behind the cart, “And that is my father, Rumpelstiltskin.”

 

“I’m Belle.”

 

* * *

 

She is not there, the day the soldiers die, nor for the children’s homecoming. Belle is always a little too late—her curse.

 

That and the clumsy streak, though that she usually chalks the clumsy up to more of a general disability. Most days, she is simply glad she has all her appendages intact, which is more than she could say for most. That and her father. She is glad to still have him, intact or no.

 

Needless to say, things are quite bad when she starts to look for work. Of course, there is none to be had. With the children returned by the Dark One, field hands and attendants to watch the cart on market day are all too numerous. Belle cannot find anyone willing to hire her, even for the meager sum she asks.

 

It isn’t until Eoghain, the egg-cart man, mentions something about someone needing a maid that Belle thinks there’s hope. Then Eoghain mentions just exactly _who_ needs the maid.

 

“It’s _him_ , isn’t it?” she realizes.

 

The man shifts from foot to foot, awkward as one of his chickens, but all the same offers her a ride to the crossroads in his dirty cart. “I’ll go no farther than this, mum,” he tells her.

 

 _Mum_ , did she really look that old, she wonders, but they sold the hand mirror at their first stop, so Belle’s no way of finding a definitive answer. “Thank you, Eoghain. This is fine, really,” she lilts and he gives her that look she always gets when she says something with too high an accent, reminding everyone just how far the ogres can throw down the mighty. All the same, he points her in the direction of Rumpelstiltskin’s new house.

 

She walks on alone, her skirt catching on overgrown weeds and thistles. It’s tattered, but it’s the only one she owns. She traded her clothes all along the way, the last of her Sunday-skirts, which itself was hardly presentable, four towns back in exchange for milk and a crust of hard bread.

 

Belle tops the hill Eoghain had pointed out to her and comes upon the grand house, _wood_ and _stone brickwork_. Also, by the look of the lay, she bets it has something of a foundation and in all likelihood wooden floors too. Imagine that.

 

She trudges to the front door; no time like the present. Belle girds herself, taking a deep breath, but not too deep, for her tunic isn’t in much better shape than her skirt, and she can’t have it falling to shreds before the job interview, and knocks on the door.

 

Where there had been rustling within the house, a hammer-silence falls. She raps again, “Hello? Anybody home?”

 

The door opens sharply, “What business have you, to disturb us?”

 

Belle hears a muffled noise inside, something like the sound she makes when her father used to tease her at state dinners, but when she tries to peer around the lame spinner, the _Dark One_ , counters her step for step. This rubs her wrong, but then she realizes something. Belle’s head tilts to the side, “Your leg’s healed.”

 

He pauses, but then answers, “So it is.”

 

She looks up at him. She’s seen him down at the village on market day, and this is not the fear-filled spinner she’d met on the road, but if she _squints_ just right, yes there, she can see it, through the newly purchased finery and the mottled, shining skin. Belle can still see the man who hid behind the cart. “You probably don’t remember me, but—“

 

“ _Belle_!”

 

She smiles, as the mud-colored head peaks around his father’s waist. “What are you doing on this side of the forest?”

 

“Yes, what _are_ you doing on our side of the forest, I wonder?”

 

Your forest, eh? Belle knew this game, no matter if you stand on marble or an unruly patch of dandelions, condescension is nine times out of ten a sloppily-constructed cover for fear. “They told me, down at the village that you’re having a difficult time finding a maid?”

 

“Yes, it would seem so,” he says, guarded, but not catching her meaning just yet.

 

Belle shrugs her shoulders, “Well, here I am. I’ll be your maid.”

 

The boy’s face lights up; his father’s falls. “ _You?_ A maid?” he questions, for her accent wouldn’t usually be found carrying brooms and scrubbing out chamber pots.

 

She sighs. Yes, yes, she wasn’t always dirt poor and desperate to feed herself and her father but, must they go over that again, right _now_? “Aye, a maid. So are you going to hire me or not, because if the answer is not, then I’d like to be on my way. It’ll be dark soon, and I don’t know these woods all that well yet.”

 

He crinkles his brow, but (for Belle can see it all play out on his features—even colored as they are) he makes his choice—she hopes for them both it’s the right one. “Well, considering we’re not likely to get another offer, you’ll have to do.” Rumpelstiltskin waves his hand grandly, be here tomorrow,” he turns to shut the door, but raises a finger to her face, “ _early_.”

 

“See you tomorrow, Belle,” she hears Baelfire squeak, before the door shuts, and the lock after it.

 

Belle starts the long walk home, wondering just exactly what she’s agreed to with this deal.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Belle leaves before first light. She does not bother with leaving a note for her father, for what good would it do? Instead, she’s left an obvious meal (simple foods—the only kind they can afford and her father can manage on his own), the cup (their only cup) filled with water and a spoonful of sleep syrup, enough to keep him a-bed until her return. She’ll be back by dinner, at least, she hopes to be.

 

She crosses to the other side of the forest, holding her tattered dress rather high, for it can only take so much wear and tear, before there won’t be any left _to wear_. It chafes her skin, still damp from the washing she’d given it the night before in the stream running behind their little thatch-roofed, lime-washed hovel. It’s not much, hardly worth being called a home, but at least they’ve a roof over their heads, though as the once-spinner’s son had warned, said roof is in need of patching. Come sunnier, warmer days, she’ll have to climb up with mud daubing. Maurice would be the best one to create the mixture, but seeing as he’s apt as not to be of use when the day comes, Belle expects she’ll have to muddle through on her own.

 

The path looks different in the pre-dawn light, and the air is still cold—Belle can see her breath. Suddenly, it feels like those first mornings she’d spent on the battlefield, when she was still cutting her first soldier’s tooth over the fact that one generally wakes up with frost on their bedroll and little more than brimstone-laced water (to keep the appetites better at bay) and hard bread for breakfast.

 

Ah, well those days were behind her—literally.

 

She finally makes it to the house all in one piece. Her dress too, for that matter. Belle pauses in front of the door, unsure whether or not to knock, not wishing to wake the household, for it was still before dawn. Her new master had said early, after all.

 

She reaches for the doorknob, when the decision is made for her.

 

Rumpelstilskin pulls open the door abruptly. “Ah, at least we know you can obey an order. Follow me,” he says, walking past her.

 

He leads her around the right of their fine house, where she sees a small shed that must serve as their larder and a stone oven, just off to the side. “You will serve the meals for myself and my son. Take what you need from the pantry.”

 

“I understand,” she says. Common enough tasks.

 

He moves quickly behind the house, Belle having to hurry to keep apace. “You will clean the house and launder our clothing.”

 

She nods to herself, making a mental list, “Yes.”

 

They’ve gone all the way around, giving Belle a chance to see where the stream runs behind the place, down the hill a ways—the same stream surely that must run past her own hovel—and now, on the other side, Belle sees two pens, one for pigs and the other for sheep. “You will see to the animals, slop the pigs, tend the sheep, but not the sheering. I’ll see to that myself.”

 

No sheering, she noted. “Got it.”

 

“One more thing,” he turns to her, stopping back at the front porch. “You will use my wheel to spin straw into gold.”

 

“ _What?”_ Belle squeaks.

 

“A quip. Not serious,” he says, laughing, “So you’re really not from around here then.”

 

“No, I’m not. What’s that to do with spinning straw into gold?”

 

“It’s a saying, common about these lands. Around here, we say it to mean an impossible task.

 

She nods. “I see.”

 

“Well, I suppose breakfast is in order.” He turns and reenters the house, holding the door for her to follow. “For small tasks, you may use the hearth. The heating of water and the like.”

 

“Right, yes,” she says, looking around, for this is her first time seeing the inside of the Dark One’s home. It’s small, but well furnished. On the right is a bed, and a ladder, that she assumes leads to a loft. In front of them there’s the fireplace and dining table. To the left, she spots the once-spinner’s spinning wheel. She smiles at the idea of the Dark One spinning wool to sell at market. Against the wall, past the wheel stands a desk with a few books—she’d have to get a closer look at that soon, but now is not the time.

 

Rumpelstiltskin takes note of her wandering eyes, “Well don’t just stand there gawking. You’ve work to do.”

 

“Sorry,” she adds, heading past him to the hearth. She spots a the large black pot, and figures it’ll do well enough for boiling water, but as she bends over, she feels a tugging on her sleeve.

 

“No, no, this won’t do at all.” Rumpelstiltskin pushes the pot back down to the ground, and she’s forced to release it, standing. He scrutinizes her, and she clasps her hands and forces herself to still, only to find she’s standing at attention—old soldiers’ habit die hard (the habits so very much harder to kill than the soldiers themselves). He twirls his finger, and Belle knows he wants her to turn for him. She does so, though her cheeks begin to burn.

 

“Is there a problem, sir?”

 

At that, he looks a bit too happy for her liking. _Not quite so frightened of me now, are you old spinnerman,_ she thinks to herself. “Well your clothes of course, positively rags. Have you no others, less _threadbare_?”

 

She answers with a question, “Would I be wearing these if I had a choice?”

 

_Would I be working for you had I a choice?_

He puts a hand to his chin. “One of these days you’ll reach too far when scrubbing floors only to rend a seam. Can’t have you well, baring yourself—I’ve a young child about,” he says, his tone half serious, half mocking.

 

Belle knows she’s blushing, but at least part of it comes not from embarrassment, but from pride. He’s going to make her ask for clothes, and it eats at her dignity, making her bristle. She raises her chin—if she has to ask, she certainly isn’t going to let him see that it bothers her to do so. Indifferently, she shrugs, “You’ll have to give me something old of yours or coin then, for I’ve no cloth to make something better.”

 

He positively grins, “That’d take too long, and why go to all that trouble when I can do you one better.” The Dark One raises a glowing hand, and barely touching her torn sleeve again, and Belle is enveloped in a cloud of purple smoke, like that in the summers when she worked in the Gaston’s father’s estate, in the washing rooms and they had the steam press. The room was always filled with steam clouds—though not _purple_.

 

When the fog finally recedes into nothing, she looks herself over. He’s dressed her simply, but suitably, in a simple brown bodice and skirt, over a white tunic. She’s a white apron around her waist, and putting a hand to her head, she feels some sort of headscarf there. He can see the surprise in her expression. “I don’t like hair in my soup, dearie.”

 

He’s showing off, Belle realizes.

 

Noting his grin, she’s not impressed—for though, already, she likes the feel of this better (and what’s more, no whalebone), Belle still remembers the feel of finer cloths than homespun and linen. “Thank you, sir,” she says, in earnest, but matching in simplicity.

 

It’s sufficient, but not fawning. Yes, that would be her relationship to her employer.

 

She turns back to take up the pot again, but as Rumpelstiltskin grabs her hands. She wants to pull away, but forces herself to stand still and not bolt. Turning her hands, he runs his thumbs over her palms, examining the lines and calluses there. “What do you see?”

 

His eyes slide up from her hands to meet her stare, but then back down. “Middling upbringing, but not unused to hardships— _recent_ hardships. You’ll do. No matter how high-born your accent, you’re no princess, lass.”

 

Belle scoffs, trying not shiver as he releases her hands, “That’s true.”

 

There’s a clatter, and both parties turn to see Baelfire come down the ladder by the door. He sleeps in the loft, apparently, she realizes. The young boy comes round the corner, rubbing sleep from his eyes. Belle can’t help but giggle at the sight, his hair sticking in all directions. Upon hearing her voice, he perks up, “Belle!”

 

“Good Morning, young sir.”

 

* * *

The rest of the day finds Belle cleaning—Rumpelstiltskin though the only parent makes no attempt at playing mother hen—and learning where to find everything about the place. By the time she serves their dinner, she’s exhausted.

 

“Hm,” Rumpelstiltskin says, after taking his first bite.

 

“Is there a problem, sir?” The question is becoming a theme, she thinks. However, she’s asked the question already well knowing there’s no problem. She’s made them a simple pottage, a recipe she knows by heart, could make in her sleep, even. Using cabbage and carrots from the larder, as well as a mishmash of spices, only a touch different from those of the Southlands. It’s a common meal, but fine—it’s her mother’s recipe, after all. Belle tries hard not to smirk as she stands behind the table, ready to be sent to or fro.

 

He frowns at her. Apparently she wasn’t hiding that smirk as well as she’d thought. “You can cook well enough, it seems.”

 

Belle smiles, all too pleased with Rumpelstiltskin’s hard-won admission, “Glad you think so.”

 

“Yes, tastes wonderful, Belle,” Baelfire says between mouthfuls.

 

As the meal goes on, her employer looks uncomfortable at her prolonged attention to their table—if he hadn’t wanted a maid puttering about, she hardly understood why he’d hired her in the first place, besides the fact that he playing at being a landed gentleman though hardly knew the way. Finally, Rumpelstiltskin turns to her, “Go, tend the fire. Burning low, I think.”

 

She wonders if it’s her imagination, or if the fire only suddenly took a dip, in tandem with a mild purple glow from a hand hidden below the table. When she hears the clank of spoons in empty bowls, she returns to gather them up.

 

“After you wash them, you’re free to go,” the man says.

 

She nods, taking Baelfire’s plate, “Yes, sir.”

 

“Thank you, Belle,” the boy says.

 

She gives him the brightest smile she can muster, “Very welcome, Baelfire.”

 

She makes to leave, all the pots and bowls balanced—always too ambitious, her mother had always said. Belle got that from her father, as her mother ought to have well known, having been the one to marry the dreamer inventor. She struggles, trying to bend and catch the latch with a spare elbow, when it suddenly swings open, unbidden. She turns to see Rumpelstiltskin with a shining hand extended. “Thank you,” she says, relieved, and a little surprised too. As she walks over the threshold, she hears him add, “Thank you for dinner.”

 

* * *

The brave idea strikes suddenly, and Belle is nothing if not brave (first for her widower father and then for herself, because that’s all she has left for which to be brave).

 

She has taken the dishes first to the pigsty to toss the leavings, when she realizes just how full the _cocette_ still is. She made much too much for the presumed widower (how else did one come by a boy and an empty bed?), and her father would surely be hungry. She certainly is. They wouldn’t miss one casserole oven-pot overnight.

 

After washing out the bowls, she walks back to the door, slipping the _cocette_ behind a bush subtly. She enters the house, but finds it empty. Baelfire must be up in his little loft, but where is his father? “Rumpelstiltskin?” she calls.

 

He grunts a reply, revealing him to be sitting parallel to her, at the desk on her left.

 

“I’ve finished.”

 

He waves a hand (not glowing this time), dismissing her, “You can go.”

 

* * *

By the time she walks home, the food’s gone cold. She enters the hovel quietly not wanting to startle Maurice. “Papa, I’m home.”

 

“Belle,” he says, blandly. She looks over to find him sitting on the bed, eyes distant and far away, but he’s calm. She doesn’t know if that’s the sleep syrup still in his system or a sign that today, he’s not with her—but at least he’s calm. Belle notes that the plate on the table is filled with crumbs of what were essentially already crumbs. Good, she thinks, he’d been of mind enough to feed himself.

 

After coaxing a small, smoking fire, she reheats the thick stew and takes a generous serving up into their one bowl. She takes it over to Maurice, kneeling before him. She places their one spoon into his hand. He grasps it, but his idle limb won’t move it from bowl to mouth. Belle sighs, “You aren’t making this very easy, you know.” She says it, knowing he’ll never register the slight—all the same, she feels a twinge of guilt for the lapse in patience.

 

Though the lapses are slowing moving from temporary to permanent states of being, whereas the patience is shifting into lapses.

 

The inventor’s daughter feeds him, sad and slow. After he’s finished, she wipes his mouth with a clean spot on her apron and tucks him back into the straw bed. That finished, she takes her own supper, washes the bowl, spoon, cast iron cooking pot, her apron, and last her own dirty hands and face in the stream out back. After, Belle curls up by the fire, and consciously between bed and door, and lets exhaustion take her into a thankfully, dreamless sleep.

 

* * *

The next day, starts with significantly less theatricality. Rumpelstiltskin lets her go about her business, hardly noting her presence.

 

After slopping the pigs, she sets about gathering up the copious amounts of laundry to be washed. The task consumes the rest of the morning. She’s only just finished hanging the last of it (having beaten the stains out with stones in the cold river—still cold from winter snow, high up in the mountains) along lines between trees on the right side of the house, to catch the best of the afternoon sunlight. Belle shakes her head at the father, who clearly has no idea how to properly clean clothing. Though to his credit, those with only one set don’t have much occasion to worry over the proper laundering of clothes.

 

When Belle completes the task, she takes a moment to catch her breath, putting her hands on the small of her back, stretching. One would think, after all this time, she’d be use to sleeping on the ground. Shaking her head, she allows herself a sigh, turning—only barely stopping herself from knocking right into Rumpelstiltskin.

 

They both back away instantly, her employer looking embarrassed. It would be funny enough to laugh over, _the Dark One embarrassed_ , if Belle didn’t think it might be the last time she’d have a laugh over anything.

 

“Sorry,” she apologizes, though the near run-in had been no fault of hers. “Didn’t see you there.”

 

“No matter,” he says, raising a hand, as if he hardly recognizes the scaly limb.

 

“Did you require something?” she asks, though it’s not the question she wants answered—one cannot simply _ask_ why the scourge of the lands was caught spying.

 

The words shake him from his embarrassment. He looks appraisingly at the lines of freshly hung clothing. “You work hard.”

 

“You were expecting a maid who skirted work?” her voice teases the line between question and sarcasm. She hopes he doesn’t take note.

 

He does, if his glare is anything by which to judge. “One who skirts when my head is turned, yes.”

 

“Well, you needn’t worry. I’m not one to generally _skirt_.” It’s not entirely true, but that was _one_ time. Belle hardly thinks it needs mentioning.

 

He looks displeased with her forwardness and halfway to telling her so, when something else catches his eye. He leans forward, taking hold of the edge of her apron—it’s still wet from the previous night’s washing. “Speaking of skirts, you were honest when you said you’d nothing else to wear.”

 

“I don’t generally lie, either.”

 

“Paint yourself quite the pious maunt, do you?”

 

“I’m no saint,” Belle spits before she can hold back. “Sir,” she adds belatedly.

 

His jaw clenches, but he makes no reprimand. “Well, then you’ll find it no trouble at all to deign to get our lunch together. Quickly. It’s nigh on noon hour, and my son’s hungry.”

 

Just your son, Belle wonders, but doesn’t ask, for she’s pushed her luck enough for one morning.

 

Or afternoon, apparently.

* * *

Quickly enough, Belle throws together a lunch of salted pork slices, goat’s cheese, and rye bread—it’s basic, but it’s what the master’d had in the larder. She can’t be blamed for lack of supplies. After she finishes, she leaves them to their meal, getting to work cleaning windowpanes, but staying close enough if they need something, learning last night that Rumpelstiltskin does not like it when she hovers about.

 

Of course, being that near, she can’t help it if she listens in to their conversation.

 

“Callum showed me a new way to tree climb, even on trees without low branches, Papa,” young Baelfire chatters.

 

“Oh really. Dragged a ladder form home? That’s the thatcher’s son, isn’t it?”

 

“Aye, but that’s not how. He was a scout during the war. It was his job to spot the ogres far off.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs. “Easy task; they’re hard to miss.”

 

Baelfire laughs, as only a boy unknown to the battlefield can. Belle wills her hands to keep scrubbing, though she’d like to stop and listen better—or better yet to run, to _skirt_.

 

“Well, how’d you go about it then?”

 

“We wrapped large bands of cloth, large as we used to make—you know the ones, before we’d cut them for the tailor—around the tree trunks and pulling them tight, pull ourselves up.” Belle can positively hear the grin in the boy’s voice, and it is a brilliant idea. It’s one she remembers second hand, having watched many a-time, the war scouts shimmying up trees for better views.

 

“You’re sure this Callum’s way is safe?” the father asks, a sharp edge to his voice.

 

Baelfire is nonplussed, “Of course, Papa.”

 

“Well, alright. Just be careful, son.”

 

* * *

After they finish, Baelfire races back out to rejoin his friends. Belle collects up the dishes and decides now is the best time to pose her question, “You know, I could manage better—“

 

“I’m not going to pay you more. Deal’s a deal.”

 

“I wasn’t going to ask that.”

 

He looks genuinely surprised at her reply. He covers surprise with irritation. “Well then, what _do_ you want, dearie?” he says, but there’s nothing _dear_ about the moniker.

 

“I could manage the meals better, if you let me go to market for you. Choose what ingredients fill the larder?”

 

Her employer leans back to survey her, as she wipes down the table. “Let me get this right, you want me to give you free reign over the purse strings—how do I know you won’t be skimming off the top, hm?”

 

A short front hair chooses that moment to come loose from her headscarf. She straightens, pushing it back with an aggravated hand, for she’s tired and sore and just found out she works for a complete ass—a nosy one, at that. “You don’t, sir. You’d just have to trust me.” With that, she makes a terse curtsy, bobbing about as fast as the blink of an eye, and turns on her heel to take the dirty dishes out to be washed.

 

Rumpelstiltskin does not stop her.

 

* * *

Belle fills the next few hours with starting in on the garden patch she’d found by the animal pens. It’s a godsbedamned mess of weeds and dead patches, but must have, at one time been of some use, for she can still see traces of care—though long since forgotten. Using a rake she’d found leaning against the larder, covered in cobwebs, but not completely petrified nor cast into the ground, she manages to tear out the overgrowth of unwanted plants. She carves up the ground, into little crisscrossing lines, to allow the air down into the soil. Tomorrow, she’d drag up good soil from the river’s edge, as her mother had bade her do when first starting a new garden patch.

 

After washing her hands, arms and knees of her skirt (face as well, for she’d gotten dirt there when she’d wiped the sweat off her brow), she goes to collect the laundry, for surely it’d be dry by now. Belle takes down the first miniature tunic, folding it up tight, with the back to the inside, so as to keep the front pressed and without wrinkles. As she goes to lay it in the laundry basket, she sees that it is not empty. At the bottom, she finds another set of clothing, identical to what she wears and a purse (though very small) full of coin.

* * *

They fall into a simple routine. Belle wakes, works, returns home to feed her father, sleeps, and then does it all again.

 

Slowly, her father takes to waking in the very early hours, strangely lucid more often than not, and she begins to do so as well, to keep him company on days he’s of a need and to keep watch all the rest. She wonders darkly how long this stretch of lucidity will last.

 

She also wonders how long she can keep going on so little sleep. Though this is an answer she already knows; Belle will go as long as she must. She’s exhausted, but it’s what has to be done until she can figure out a better solution.

 

* * *

It’s market day, and Belle is out and about, restocking the pantry, as well as picking up a few seeds and preserved bulbs to add to her little garden. She’d also like to have a talk with the local apothecary, if there’s time.

 

She’s just finished haggling over rutabagas with Hoolihan. He’s not her favorite villager, but he’s the best vegetables, and one of the few who will still make small talk with the infamous _Maid to the Dark One_. So Belle stomachs his arrogance for the scraps of idle chatter he throws her way. Looks like rain, again, she learns.

 

Fascinating, truly.

 

Just when she’s finally gotten him to agree to her price, she sees him frown at something behind her shoulder. “What?”

 

“See for yourself,” he mutters, scurrying out of sight, into his house—taking the rutabagas with him.

 

Belle grumbles to herself, but turns around to see what all the fuss it about, if it was worth the pointless haggling. There’s a crowd gathered up the street. Belle walks over to see find the cause to the commotion—probably an impromptu cockfight, or a laugh being had at the expense of the town drunkard. Either way, it was surely the most culturally stimulating event she was like to encounter. Oughtn’t miss it, if she wanted to have something to discuss with Hoolihan, whenever he decided to come out of hiding that is. What she finds is neither village play-violence, nor the mocking of an invalid.

 

It’s her employer.

 

Rumpelstiltskin is confronting someone. Belle presses closer into the distant circle, but she can’t hear what’s being said. Two steps behind his father, Baelfire stands, looking afraid and uncomfortable. The backdrop for the little tiff is the smithy, and she finally places where she’s seen the man the Dark One confronts. Doesn’t know the man’s name, but he’s about her age, son of the blacksmith. Second, she thinks, but can’t be sure. She does know he’s testy, the type to pick a fight in a tavern.

 

Wrong fight, Belle thinks.

 

The voices rise higher. She catches _thief, son_ , and _hand_. However, the fight is over before it begins; the smithsson raises his hammer, pointing it at Rumpelstiltskin, red in the face, and with a snap of his fingers, the Dark One has magic-ed him into a snail.

 

Belle’s eyes go wide, but she can’t honestly say she’s surprised. She’s known his power to be unmatched.

 

He leaves the creature where it lays, having parceled out punishment enough. She ducks out of sight as Rumpelstiltskin passes, dragging Baelfire along with him, down the main thoroughfare. The crowd of villagers part like the waters of the deep, from that old tale the castle maunts used to tell the children on Sundays, when she worked there over the summers.

 

Belle leaves the village quickly, sneaking out into the woods before the crowds realize the Dark One’s maid is about, but takes her time getting back to the house of her employer. Halfway there, she realizes she’s forgotten all about the rutabagas.

 

* * *

Belle doesn’t exactly struggle with the decision, but that isn’t to say she enjoys the execution thereof. She’s about to leave for the night, having cleaned up supper and stoked up the fire one last time. She stands in the archway in the center of the house, close enough to be heard, but far enough away to breath. “Are you going to change him back?”

 

“Hadn’t planned on it.” Rumpelstiltskin sits at his desk, writing in a large ledger—she’s still yet to investigate his small collection of books. “Send him some salt. Maybe that’ll cure what ails him.”

 

She chooses her next words carefully, because to push would be to test his mercies—which today she’s seen in action, and they aren’t extensive. “What did he do to merit such harsh-handed justice?” she asks, even and slow.

 

“The bastard accused my son of stealing. Was about to take the supposed price from his flesh.”

 

It is true, she knew the family at the smithy to be harsh. The son in question, in particular, always wore a bit of a cruel look. “That seems a bit _extreme_.”

 

He scoffs, “I don’t know from where you come, but there’s little mercy to be found in this land, mum. Here, it’s _in for a penny, in for a pound_ , as they say.” He sets down his quill back in the inkwell. “From where exactly _did_ you say you hailed?”

 

“I didn’t.” She wants to be brave, to say _perhaps if you showed them mercy, they’d learn it by following your example_ , but she’s afraid and she’s learned that to survive, one must oft take the coward’s route—that’s a lesson she knows very well.

 

So, she says nothing.

 

Later, after feeding her father and putting him to bed, she makes her cowardly move. Donning her father’s cloak, she makes her way through the woods, the woods she’s finally learned to navigate in both light and dark. She stays hidden as long as possible, and then keeps only to the shadows created by the village houses.

 

Belle reaches the blacksmith’s house and sneaking up to the backdoor, knocks quietly.

 

It’s a long time, but finally the door opens a tiny crack. “Yes? What do you want?”

 

“I’m here—“

 

“No, no wait. I know you—you work for _him_.” The man, presumably the father blacksmith, starts to shut the door.

 

“No, wait. I’ve come to help your son,” she implores.

 

He stops, clearly thinking on her words. After a few moments he opens the door, quickly ushering her inside. The man’s in his nightdress, and when he begins to light a candle, Belle stops him. “No need. I’ll only be a moment.”

 

“You—you can change him?”

 

“No, but I know someone who might be able to help.” She sighs, wishing there was more she could do, but this is all her instinct to survive will allow—so be it. “I traveled, before I came here,” she says lamely. “A fortnight’s journey, to the south, there’s a small city, Padirac. City boasts a witch. She may be able to change your son back. I don’t know.”

 

“Padirac, in the south,” the man nods, committing the words to memory. “What’s the witch’s name?”

 

“Melisande, lives a few miles out the town. Keeps to herself. Her price may be high, I know not, but she was kind enough to offer I and my father food and shelter overnight.” Belle shrugs. “Who knows, she may be able to help.”

 

“Melisande, the witch in Padirac,” he repeats.

 

Belle gives a curt nod, turning to leave. As the blacksmith closes the door behind her, “Thank you,” he whispers.

 

* * *

Belle isn’t fond of gardening. Never has been; never will be. Perhaps, sleeping on the ground, only to wake up covered in mud aggravated the natural inclination. Who could know? She neither had the time, nor the energies to ponder such eternal questions these days.

 

She’s finally managed to coax a little life into the ground. She’s started with a few basics, gillyflower, basil, coriander, and rosemary—though the coriander looks limp on its best days.

 

She’s also indulged and dug up a few of the day lilies from the crossroads where she waits on Eoghain and his egg cart every day or so. The orange flowers looked so lovely by the road, and what’s more they didn’t get enough sun there to do more than open at an hour before noon and shrivel at two after.

 

She takes a break, sitting back on her haunches.

 

“Watch out!”

 

Turning with soldier’s reflexes, Belle catches the pig’s bladder ball aimed straight at her head. As Baelfire runs up, she wonders at the boy. He is not a loner by choice or by nature, like his father, but more and more she sees him keeping to the house these days. “Lose something?” she asks, teasingly.

 

“Sorry, Belle.” He shrugs, “Hard to keep to one place when I’m just practicing kicking on my own.”

 

He’s not asking for pity, or pandering for a playmate, but Belle knows instantly that he’d rather not be playing by himself. She tosses him the ball with a sure hand. “In any case, young sir, looks to me like you’ve a strong one.”

 

Baelfire beams at her. Oh, no, she thinks, one day this one is bound to break more than one village heart. She stands, brushing herself off. “However, bet mine’s stronger.”

 

He gives her a strange look, but then takes her meaning. “You’re going to have to prove it to me.”

 

“I planned on it, Baelfire,” she smirks down at him, wiping her dirty hands on her apron. She raises a finger and taps it on his nose, “And I don’t plan on going easy on you, so I expect the same.”

 

“Alright,” the boy walks some distance from her, to start this game, “but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He kicks the ball with a good measure of accuracy, and it’s no difficulty for Belle to kick it back to him—though it’s been many years since she’s last played this child’s game—using the inside of her foot, as she recalls.

 

The dreaded garden will keep one more day, at least.

 

* * *

“Wait a moment,” Rumpelstiltskin bids her, one night as she’s about to leave for home. Belle thinks instantly that he’s realized she’s been stealing the leftovers, but his next words put that thought to ease. “I’m going on a trip, first thing tomorrow.”

 

“Oh,” she says. “Will you not be needing me then?”

 

“Oh no, you don’t get off that easily.” He stands, from where he’d been sitting at his desk, as he was apt to do in the evenings. “It’s a _delicate_ business in need of doing; I’m not taking my son with me.”

 

Belle mulls over what this means for her. She realizes this means she’s to look after Baelfire. She realizes this _also_ means she’ll be held responsible for Baelfire. Oh seven hells. She wonders if she asked the boy nicely if he’d stay sitting inside without moving for the duration of his father’s absence, she imagines not. “What would you have me do, sir?”

 

“Do?” the Dark One takes a menacing step forward, pointing a finger in her face, “Why I’d have you do what I pay you to do—just keep on doing it, while I’m not here to keep watch over you.”

 

Belle gulps. “Yes, sir.”

 

“Keep him fed and out of trouble, and there’ll be no problems. I should return in a few day’s time.”

 

She nods, and when he says no more, she turns, but at the door, he stops her again. “Oh, and Belle, if there are _problems_ —I’ll know it.”

 

Belle leaves, knowing only one thing for certain: she isn’t likely to get any sleep tonight.

 

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin has been gone three days, and the world’s yet to end, Baelfire’s yet to meet an untimely end, and Belle’s still in human form. All in all, she can’t complain.

 

This doesn’t mean she’s stopped jumping at every creak or sound, wondering if the Dark One’s come for her, but at least she knows there’s no logical reason to draw him from whatever mysterious business he’s awayed to.

 

She can’t even truly complain about how tired she is, for this morning (or night, as the case may be) her father had awakened before her, only to wander out, past her curled, sleeping form, into the forest. When she’d woken herself, it had taken half the pre-dawn to find him.

 

Belle gave Maurice a little more of the sleep syrup this morning.

 

She’s just glad she found him safe and uninjured, but gladness isn’t the same as rest. So anyone would excuse her for, after hanging the laundry out to dry, falling asleep slouched between the roots of one of the trees, on accident, when she’d taken a short break.

 

However, Rumpelstiltskin isn’t just anyone.

 

Belle rouses slowly, feeling something against her leg. Then, she jumps, cursing under her breath, realizing she’d been sleeping in the backyard of the Dark One.

 

The Dark One who now stood above her, nudging her leg with his boot. “I don’t pay you to sleep.”

 

“Sorry,” she offers, drowsily, scrambling to her feet. Truly, she’s not that afraid. If he’d meant to punish her, he’d look angrier—for she’s seen him angry. Now, he looks mildly annoyed. “Not usually that lax.”

 

He _hmphs_ at her, but doesn’t raise a hand, nor censure her further. After a few tense moments, he continues, “I’ve a task for you, that is, if you can stay awake long enough?”

 

She nods quickly.

 

“Good.” From behind his back— _or from thin air,_ she wonders _—_ Rumpelstiltskin pulls a rolled up bundle. He holds it up between them. “I need this laundered, _discreetly_.”

 

What’s that supposed to mean? “Discreetly?” she asks.

 

He sighs, “Let’s just say, it’s in everyone’s best interest, that only you and I know of this task.”

 

“Oh, you don’t want Bae to know,” she says, the words coming from her sleep-addled mouth before her brain can stop them. He smiles, handing over the bundle of clothes to be cleaned, all sharp and jagged edges. Belle takes it warily, and without asking, starts to unroll it.

 

“Don’t _do_ that. Not here—“

 

Her hands stop, but not before she sees a large blood stain. Her jaw drops. “Seven hells. What happened?” she asks, more accusation than question.

 

Rumpelstiltskin’s hand is at her jaw instantly. “Hold your tongue, or lose it. I don’t care which, lass.”

 

When she says no more, he takes back his hand. “That’s better,” he says and leaves her to her appointed task.

 

* * *

Blood isn’t an easy stain to remove, and it takes her quite some time and energy before the clothes are wearable. It’s not quite time for dinner, when she hangs them to dry with the rest of the laundry, Baelfire won’t come ‘round for some time yet.

 

Belle takes what clothes are dry inside, hoping to find Rumpelstiltskin there. He doesn’t disappoint. He’s sitting at the wheel, and she can feel his eyes on her, as she moves about the room, returning linens and clothing to their proper places. She tenses when she hears the wheel stop creaking.

 

“You’ve done what I asked?”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“Good thing.” The wheel starts to turn again—perhaps it needed oiling, but then how would she know when his attention strayed from the wool?

 

She puts the last of the laundry away, and walking to the door she makes her move. “Why didn’t you want me in the village?” she asks, facing the door, instead of the spinnerman.

 

“What are you talking about? I’ve said nothing about the village.”

 

Still, Belle does not turn, “The day I met you, you didn’t want me to stay. Why?”

 

The wheel stops. He takes his time with his answer, finally deciding upon, “There’s much to fear in the highborn.”

 

“But I’m not highborn.”

 

“Higher than most, then.” She hears him set down the spool—ah, this was becoming serious. “How was I to know you weren’t some agent of the duke, sent to conduct a secret census of our children?”

 

Belle cringes at the mention of the duke and children. She was an agent once, though not by any choice of her own. However, Rumpelstiltskin had nothing to fear from her—she was responsible for dead children enough to damn her soul many times over.

 

Already damned, depending on how you viewed it—depending on whether or not you believed her dead, as Belle would have most think.

 

She nods to the shut door at his answer, and opening starts to go coax a fire in the brickwork oven outside for their dinner, but he continues. “Dearie.”

 

Belle turns to him at last. “Aye?”

 

“Before, what I said.” He leans forward, his face almost touching the wheel spokes—it’s frightening. “I keep my promises. He’s not to know.”

 

“I’m good at keeping quiet,” she says without emotion, and it’s true, for she kept quiet on the sides of roads and below bridges and crouched in ditches. So quiet, the Southlands forgot she existed. Yes, when she wanted to be, Belle could be dead quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lifted bits:
> 
> Maunt – Gregory Maguire’s more mythical name for Nun, from the Wicked Cycle.
> 
> Sleep Syrup – Hunger Games
> 
> Melisande – name from Cameron Dokey’s Golden, a Rapunzel retelling (and one of my all time favorite books).
> 
> Also, cocette is the French name for a Dutch Oven.


	3. Chapter 3

The discovery comes out of nowhere.

 

It’s a bright, warm, not-quite-but-almost summer day, and this week’s wash went much faster than expected—perhaps after having rid the clothes of all the accumulated stains due to the task being performed by an ill-equipped father and son, things would come cleaner faster from now on. After stringing up the laundry to dry on lines between trees around the back of the house, Belle decides it’s high time that Baelfire’s loft had an airing-out, what with way the young sir trudged down tiny balls of dust each morning. Now with the better weather, the room could be washed and fully dry by nightfall, before her master returned home. Good thing, that, as he was oft to say.

 

Rumpelstiltskin had left them alone today, having gone on business to nearby Longbourn. It’s his second trip, the second time he has left her with Baelfire, and she’s glad that, this time at least, she’s not half afraid she’ll drop a plate and he’ll appear behind her with a glowing, hand raised in violence.

 

That said, she hasn’t forgotten his promise, his _warning_ , but as she’d told Rumpelstiltskin, Belle knows when to keep her mouth shut.

 

She sneezes as she walks back to the house, for the springtime sickness is upon her. It is not at all helped by the fact that she sleeps on a dirt floor every night, where dust cannot ever be truly got rid of. So she does not sing today. She’d let a few notes loose while beating clothes at the edge of the ice cold river, but they had been more like croaks and aggravated her throat worse than they’d soothed her soul. She gave up.

 

Without the singing, there’s little warning to the young sir when she begins to ascend the ladder to Baelfire’s loft. A few rungs from the top, she begins to whistle, absent-mindedly, and suddenly she realizes, the young sir is not out in the village playing with friends, as she’d thought.

 

Belle realizes she’s just walked in on something of a _private nature_.

 

“Oh, _I’m so sorry_ ,” she says on instinct, thinking she’s stumbled upon the early stages of a youth’s discovery of _self_ , but her eyes widen, as the rustling of cloth gives way to a flash of a blonde head flying from mattress to hide behind the curtain of the only attic window—one that bears only a skirt, and a white one that Belle’s damn near sure is a petticoat, at that.

 

 _Ah,_ Baelfire is hiding a girl in his room.

 

The young couple wasn’t fast enough, and now, the son of her master hosts a half-clothed girl behind his curtain.

 

It’s not the first that Belle’s interrupted a couple, mid-amorous holds (once her parents, and once her troop leader and that aide-de-camp, that one time), so it’s nothing new. Nonetheless, it certainly never gets any more comfortable for all parties involved.

 

Belle’s eyes go wide, as she stares at the boy, clad only in pants and an open jerkin, neither of which doing anything to cover the _army lean-to_ in his breeches. He clasps his hands in front of himself, as he realizes this also. The poor boy could not be more red—as red as those rutabagas she’d made last week. “Uh, Belle, I set my clothes for wash downstairs, like you asked,” he offers.

 

Fair attempt, Bae, she thinks, but Belle’s not stupid, and what’s more, even if she had missed the girl flying from the bed, she wouldn’t have missed the pair of bare feet sticking out from beneath the curtain.

 

Out of instinct, Belle reverts to a voice she remembers from long ago, locked deep in her subconscious—that of her own mother. “Oh, no, no. None of that, young sir.” She gives him a pointedly _parental_ look. “Now, I’m going to turn around for exactly ten seconds, and when I turn back I expect clothing.” Belle starts to turn, hands on her hips, adding, “On _both_ of you.”

 

She hears more rustling. When the sounds stop, Belle asks, “Alright?” The children give no reply, but she turns slowly, allowing for any yells to halt. None are given.

 

She looks up, and there stand two young people, one a soldier, and the other nigh-on, but has certainly known death-a-plenty; Belle suddenly remembers that the girl’s name is Morraine.

 

The girl’s taller than Baelfire, must be a bit older. In fact, this act may very well have been her idea. Belle wonders, how much innocence the former soldier has left to lose, for more things are left on the battlefield than limb, and life, and hope—as Belle knows far too well.

 

“Alright,” she begins, feeling suddenly very tired and very out of her element, but she knows a few things for certain, this act would not go over well, without a cleric’s first having bound up the young people’s wrists in a handfast, nor would the Dark One as an in-law, should the girl come to be _in the family way_ , and what’s more, no one was getting turned into snails on her watch—at least this week.

 

She thinks of washing bloody linens and wonders briefly if Rumpelstiltskin would consider this _problematic_ enough to draw him back from his business.

 

“Let’s get a few things straight,” she says gently to the sheepish children— _because godsdamnit, they_ are _children_. “First, I’m not mad, so you can stop looking so frightened, if you please. Second, I understand _why_ , but you can’t. Not in this house, as long as it’s my place to decide,” she says firmly, but not accusingly.

 

Now, with the rules in place, time to change the battle strategy to divide and conquer, she thinks. “Bae, the laundry must be dry. My basket’s by the door, go and fetch it for me, while I wash and air out your room.” The boy nods and goes straight for the stairs. The girl follows hard on his heels, but Belle stops her with a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder, as she makes to pass.

 

Bae turns, when he realizes Morraine is not following him, looking wide-eyed to Belle for an explanation.

 

“Morraine and I are going to have a little talk. A girl talk.” Though, as Belle says the words, she wonders if it’s more a _woman’s_ talk that they’d be having.

 

“It’s alright, Baelfire,” Morraine says, heavily, and Belle holds in a sigh. A woman’s talk it is then.

 

Baelfire nods and leaves them. Belle waits silently until the door shuts and she hears the sound of feet moving through brush, before speaking. She wonders just how to begin, when everything’s so upturned that no answers are to be found, or more likely to be lost and lost for ages to come, at that.

 

“I don’t want you to think I think you are in the wrong, Morraine.” She tries to fill her voice with the gentle love she imagines a country mother or older sister would hold, the love of someone Morraine may or may not have—Belle knows not, simply that she wishes to be like the voice she wanted to hear all those years ago when she’d had questions about war and sex and even love. “It’s just, I want to warn a woman, that after the battles and the ogres, there are things, things that in a village do not sit as well. Things that do not sit as well when death isn’t imminent.”

 

“It’s not big deal,” she says, squirming from foot to foot. “And Bae—he cares about me, and he didn’t go to war. He’s still so _good_.” The girl means something akin to wonderful and kind and special and pure and, by the gods, Belle can remember this, she remembers before blood and loss and _hate_ made her forget how to feel so very star-struck by a boy, or even by simply a friend. Gods, those were the days.

 

Those were the days, and she wants Morraine to have more of them.

 

“He’s _good_ , aye. I know.” She touches the girl’s cheek, “Which is why, we need to think ahead, if this would get him into trouble, because we care about Baelfire. Have you considered this?”

 

Morraine shrugs.

 

“His father, the old spinner is spinner no more. He’s the Dark One, dear.”

 

“I’m not afraid,” she says immediately, eyes flaring.

 

She made a fine solider, Belle imagines. “That’s good, but even if you aren’t afraid for yourself, it’s important to think of the others involved in this, for that’s what _coupling_ does.” She pauses, to let her words sink in. “Maybe not at first, but _eventually_ , it forces you to think about others, whether you want or plan to. What of a child, Morraine? Or your parents? When you lie with a man, you chance making one family out of what was two. Are you ready for that? Is Bae?” She asks her questions slowly, not as accusations, but as breadcrumbs. It’s important for the girl to find her own way along this path.

 

Morraine looks thoughtful, “I just want to be with him. He wants it too.” A few tears roll down her cheeks.

 

Belle cups the girls face, wiping up the tears with her thumbs, “I know, sweetling. I know you do, and I wish coupling was just that simple, but it’s not. You may be ready to feel that with someone, with Bae even, but are you ready for the rest of it, the housekeeping and the going to market and the babies?”

 

“No,” she says, crying just a little— _gods, she looks young_.

 

“Then that means you’re not ready for this just yet. Wait a while. I’m not even saying forever. Wait until you’re, I don’t know, not doing it out of a broken heart, because of the war, but when you’re with him because you want to be as close to him as a body can possibly be.” Belle pulls a fresh handkerchief from her apron pocket and wipes the child’s cheeks before handing it over for Morraine to blow her nose. “It’s been difficult since coming home, aye?”

 

The girl nods, still crying. “You aren’t going to tell my parents, are you?”

 

Belle thinks for a moment. What good would that do? Reinforce for the village couple how not little their baby has become? What war breaks and takes, and forces us to live with? No, the girl was a woman-child and Belle believed her words had done the job as well as it could be done, in times like these. “No, of course not.” She pats down the girl’s truly, very pretty hair.

 

“And Bae’s papa, will you tell him?”

 

The maid thinks for a moment on her master. She supposes her hands are more tied on that one. “I think I have to, but trust me, it won’t come to ill. I’ll see to that,” Belle promises, though she hardly likes giving her word, these days.

 

Morraine nods, and Belle thinks she’s right in her guessing, that Rumpelstiltskin won’t be angry. She’d interrupted the little couple. She wishes she’d interrupted everything, interrupted before the wars, before the ogres, before the blown off arms and broken legs, before children were playing adult games to forget adult pains, but she only interrupted two babies too young for the making of babies. So that is the problem she would work to help.

 

“No more tears, m’dear,” Belle says, feeling suddenly, the lilt of the once-spinner on her tongue. “Let’s go out and meet Bae.”

 

On the porch, as Morraine passes back the handkerchief, she remembers another lesson to share, “Oh, and if you choose to do _this_ before the marriage bed, on a market day, go to see the hedge witch. She’ll have some herbs to prevent you from becoming with child. They don’t always work, mind, but it’s something.”

 

The girl’s head tilts, as she absorbs the information. “Thank you.”

 

Belle smiles the least sad smile she can manage, “It’s nothing. If you ever have questions, or want to talk, about this, or anything, really, you can come to me, alright?”

 

Morraine nods, and looks surprised, but not afraid, nor hesitant. Perhaps, she would be able to help at least one woman in arms. As she leaves, she passes Baelfire with the laundry basket. He nods to Morraine and they smile awkwardly at one another. Belle almost regrets her timing, but then brushes the thought away.

 

He ducks his head as he steps up to the porch. Together they sit down and begin to fold the clothing and linens. It’s some time before Baelfire speaks, “Are you angry?”

 

“I already told you I wasn’t, Bae.”

 

This puts him at ease, but then his face falls even farther, “Are you disappointed?”

 

 _Oh, my sweet child_. Belle smiles her hidden field smile, for just a second, “No, of course not, well, not with _you_. Never with you, Baelfire. With life, with war, yes, those things disappoint me.” As do fathers too busy with “business” to talk to their sons about just what _exactly_ happens in springtime, how flowers bloom and open oft times too soon—caution was needed, for they could have a frost yet.

 

“You’re going to tell Papa, aren’t you?”

 

“Not with _who_ , but yes, I am.”

 

Bae nods, and he doesn’t look so young suddenly. “Think he’ll be upset?”

 

Belle rolls her eyes. If I know anything of men and their sons, he’ll be oddly pleased, she thinks. “No, I don’t think he’ll be upset at all.”

 

They finish folding the clothes and stacking them neatly in the basket, but as Belle stands to take the things to their proper places inside, she gives Bae her final thoughts on the matter, “All I’ve really to say, before your father gets home, is that, if you’ve need to sneak about to do something that may mean it’s not the right idea or at the least, deserves serious thought. This isn’t always the case, mind, but very often it is, and last, you’re soon to be a man. I need to respect that, young sir. I’ll knock before coming upstairs from now on.”

 

* * *

 

That night, Rumpelstiltskin returns in not a splendid mood, but neither one of malcontent—so his attitude is that of general detached animosity toward the world and his little housekeeper. Not surprisingly, Baelfire complains of a headache and asks to be excused to bed directly after supper.

 

Belle sighs. She could hardly blame the poor— _embarrassed_ —boy. As she cleans up the dinner table, Rumpelstiltskin moves to his desk and begins inspecting his market wares. He’s brought back books, mostly, but also a kite for Bae. His maid watches him, as he flips through his new tomes, cross checking against his large ledger, almost as large as the desk itself, though for what, Belle knows not.

 

As she wipes down the very fine table, at least for this provincial town, she brings up her concern, “Rumpelstiltskin, I need to speak with you.”

 

“Bit busy, dearie. It’ll keep ‘till morning.”

 

She wants to bark, because she isn’t left over brown bread that will do well enough for breakfast morn; she is a person, but of course, the Dark One can’t be bothered with bread and mere mortals. However, she bites her tongue, and instead balancing the tray on her hip, walks over to his side of the room and says, “No, I don’t think it will.’

 

She sees him sigh, setting down his quill, his shoulders saying _this had better be good, woman_. She plays her best card fast, with his shoulders set like that, “It’s to do with Baelfire.”

 

That grabs his attention. “What’s the matter? Is he hurt?”

 

His concern almost makes her smile, but not quite, “No, no, nothing like that. It’s just—have you had t _he talk_ with him?”

 

“Talk? What are you on about? We talk everyday?” he says, dismissively and turns back to his work-ledger.

 

“Not just any talk—the one about the nature—of a man and a woman— _together_.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin freezes, “Bit young for that don’t you think?”

 

“I do, but what I think doesn’t matter, for I caught him today, with a girl, in his room.” Belle waits a moment before adding, “They’d not gotten up to anything, but were rather on their way.”

 

“ _Oh._ ” He says. He’s silent, and Belle wonders what he’s thinking about. After a moment, he turns, asking, “Was she pretty?”

 

Belle rolls her eyes. _Men_. For supposedly being the great and terrible beast, the Dark One certainly did his best to act like every other man with which she had been acquainted. “Though that’s hardly the point, yes, she was pretty, very.”

 

This pleases Rumpelstiltskin. “Of course she was pretty. She was with my Baelfire, after all. That shows some sense.”

 

“ _Rumpelstiltskin_ ,” she groans, impatient.

 

“Watch your tone,” he censures. Leaning back, in his chair, he steeples his fingers, thinking. Grandly, he says, “I suppose you’re right. I’ll talk to him about the way of things.” The father turns back to his books, considering the matter ended.

 

If only it were that simple; if only Belle didn’t care so damn much.

 

“And will you tell him of how to avoid undesired children?” she asks. Truthfully, it is a loaded question, for she doubts he knows of the methods himself, of the hedge witches and apothecaries in back alleys, behind curtains without bells.

 

He sets his quill down, huffing, “I hadn’t planned on it.”

 

“Well, perhaps you should.”

 

“ _Madam,_ if you’re so _informed_ on the topic, why don’t you just stay and have this little chat with the two us?” he growls.

 

Belle shifts her weight with the heavy tray, not looking away from Rumpelstiltskin. “Fine. I will.”

 

She suppresses a smile at his expression. She can see how much he desires to say no, but that would be admitting his bluff. Couldn’t have that, could he?

 

“As you wish.”

 

“What time should I plan on?”

 

He sighs, thinking for a moment, then turns, finally free to go back to his dusty books, “Tomorrow, after breakfast.”

 

* * *

As Belle cleans up the morning dishes, Rumpelstiltskin sits as if he’s worried any movement will cause him to fall over, while Baelfire looks anxious to be on the move, hands jittery.

 

“Papa, I think I’m going to try the kite for, the wind’s strong today,” the boy says, standing the minute Belle’s taken the plates away.

 

“Sit down, son. We’ve _matters_ to discuss.”

 

Belle leaves the cleaning for later and instead, takes up the breeches she’d been mending and goes to sit in the rocking chair by the hearth. She sneaks a glance at father and son; both their faces look stricken.

 

“A talk, papa?” Baelfire looks all of the innocence of a babe’s naming day, boasting only a week on the earth.

 

The maid smirks—fine move, young sir.

 

“I’ve heard,” Rumpelstiltskin begins, but then amends, “Belle tells me you had a girl in your room yesterday, is that true?

 

“Aye, sir.”

 

He nods, taking a moment to collect himself before continuing—and Belle wants rather much to laugh, for the Dark One looks about as comfortable as one sitting on pins and needles, but then she remembers how he prefers her silence. “Son, remember when you asked me a few winter’s back about the pigs,” his voice drops a note lower whether in shame or embarrassment, Belle knows not, “we’d kept in the house from the cold and what they were up to, one atop another?”

 

Baelfire’s cheeks go that rutabaga red again. “I remember.”

 

“And you remember what I told you?”

 

“Yes, papa, that they were bringing about the spring piglets.”

 

“Aye, son. So you know, it’s rather much the same with _people_ , only not just for in the spring? You take my meaning, Bae?”

 

“Yes, I understand.”

 

“Good. Good thing.” Rumpelstiltskin sighs, clearly not sure where to go from here. It’s one thing to know the _act_ , the other to know why it’s best left to pigs and older folk for a few more years. “Do you also remember why, when the piglets are not full-grown, we have to start putting them in two pens?”

 

 _Technically, I do the separating now,_ Belle thinks, but doesn’t mention this trifling, little detail.

 

“The boy pen and the girl pen, I remember, because they’re too young for _that_.”

 

“Coupling, they still too young for all that.” He pauses, but adds, “And like the first, it’s still much the same for people,”

 

Rather sly way to go about arriving at that conclusion, Belle thinks, smiling even as she works to untangle a knot she’s created.

 

Baelfire nods, “So it’s because we’re too young? Too _small_?”

 

The adults pause and exchange a glance, for how to explain that though yes, their little children’s bodies were too young, too little for this, that was hardly the end of the reasons _why_. Belle opens her mouth to answer, but Rumpelstiltskin cuts her off before she can begin, “That’s not the only reason, Bae. Think of it this way. You told me last week about that friend of yours who’d wanted a pet.”

 

“Aye, Lachlann. What’s that to do with this?”

 

“Well, think back to how you told me you thought it wasn’t a good idea. What reasons did you tell me?”

 

“Because he thought the dog would be fun, but he’s not good at doing his chores, and I don’t think Lachlann was thinking about how he’d have to feed and take care of his pet.” Suddenly Baelfire’s eyes widen. “ _Oh_.”

 

“Take my meaning?”

 

“It’s the same with people, with _babies_.”

 

Belle looks over to see the smirking Rumpelstiltskin—yes, quite sly indeed.

 

“Aye, son, and it’s my reckoning that you’re a bit young to be a father, don’t you think, Bae?”

 

“Yes, I’m too young—couldn’t take care of it, not yet.” He pauses thoughtful, smiling, says, “And you’re too young to be a grandfather, aye?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin looks for all the world like he very much wants to deny this, but then, instead he answers, “Yes, son, too young to be a grandfather yet. Someday, not now though.”

 

“The hedge witch,” Belle offers quiet and seamlessly.

 

Bae’s look of comfort and understanding vanishes instantly, as he looks from Belle to his father. “What about Old Agnes? It won’t make me sick, will it? Because Lachlann said his ma told him that,” the boy drops his voice, low as it will go, but Belle still hears all the same, “if he takes himself in hand, it’ll make him blind. Is that true?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs. “We had that wives’ tale in my day too—it’s a lie, son. Told to keep boy’s hands out their breeches. But no, it won’t make you sick,” he comforts. “Only, you may want to go see Witch Agnes, when—if—“

 

“If in a few years, when you’ve grown up a bit, the hedge witch can tell you some ways to avoid children,” Belle fills in, where her employer had faltered. “Even if you lie with a woman. It’s important to know, because perhaps you’ve handfasted and married and have a family, but who knows, maybe there are too many children, and you need to know ways to deal with that.”

 

“And Agnes, she’ll know? Ways to do that?” he asks.

 

“The hedge witch, or any apothecary really,” Belle says.

 

“I think I’d like to know that. In a few years.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin nods, “Aye, so do we have a deal, then? You’ll wait a few years, ‘till you’ve grown a bit more, hm?”

 

“Aye, papa.”

 

“Aright then,” the father looks to Belle, who shakes her head, with no more to add, before telling his son with a crooked grin, “Now, off you go. Catch the wind while it’s still strong.”

 

Baelfire doesn’t need to be told twice. The boy grabs his kite and a spool of woolen thread, before running out the door. Once gone, Rumpelstiltskin stands and goes to the window to watch his son.

 

“That went well… don’t you think?” he asks uncertainly, and Belle knows what he’s really asking: _did I do all right?_

 

Belle thinks he could have mentioned something about gentleness and being careful with maidens, but then there’s time, and all that had been needed today was a warning, a tempering to youth awakening too soon, on the cusp of adulthood, and they’d certainly more than accomplished that. “Aye, it did.”

 

They are silent for sometime, before Belle speaks up. “There, finished,” she says, tying the final knot in her thread. She holds up the pair of mended breeches, in the morning light from the window, checking over her work.

 

When her master’s shadow falls across them, she passes the garment up for him to inspect—he was a spinner once upon a time, after all.

 

He _hms_ , running a thumb over the sewn area, then _tsks_ , lightly. “Watch your blind stitch; you grow lazy toward the end.”

 

Belle nods; she already knew that, but had hoped he wouldn’t care. Oh well, one could only hope for so much. She reaches up, making to take back the breeches, to redo the indolent stitches, but Rumpelstiltskin does not give them back. “These’ll do, dearie. Just beware on the next.”

 

“Yes, sir.”


	4. Chapter 4

As usual, it’s still dark out when Belle awakens on the ground. She rouses to the sound of curses from the Southlands, ones she’s only heard from her own mouth of late.

 

“ _Merde_.”

 

“Morning to you as well.”

 

“Oh, Belle, damn.” Her father stumbles over his words, “I had not meant to wake you.” The inventor sits beside the small and dirty hearth in one of the two chairs their hovel boasts, struggling to light the fire.

 

“’Tis alright.” She sits up, rubbing her eyes, but even through her hazy wakefulness, she can sense that Maurice is as near to the father she knew all her life as he ever is these days. She’s not sure whether to be pleased or disappointed. Both she supposes. “You could have woken me for that,” she says, pointing to the flint held awkwardly in a single hand.

 

He frowns at her, “You don’t sleep enough as it is with me bothering you for simple fire lighting, Belles.” All his self-loathing hollows his face, hollow as his right sleeve, hanging limply at his side, though Belle can’t see it from where she sleeps on the ground. She’d brought them here to recover, to rally before a march to something better, farther off, but they’ve been here too long and all the demons have caught up—ones that may have never been that far behind to start. The village and the sleep syrup and all the rest (including his daughter’s harsh handed, scowling love) are taking their toll on Maurice. An inventor’s hands ought never be idle and they certainly oughtn’t be invalid.

 

But at least he’s clean and clothed and well-fed. She’d purchased him new clothing and boots (better for their eventual leaving) on market day from her own purse when done with Rumpelstiltskin’s shopping. She’s filled their hovel with better food and another bowl; she thinks next week she’ll get them their own small, cast-iron pot, and because this is how Belle solves their problems with practical answers for questions of the heart and soul, it leaves her little time for sleep and even less for self-pity. She grabs the flint out his hand sharply (and what’s more the baby name put a crinkle in her brow). “I’ll do it.”

 

Maurice watches her struggle with the damp bits, when fire finally takes, it illuminates the dark circles beneath her eyes. “You’re working too hard.”

 

“I’m fine,” she says, because that’s the answer she’s given him for years, why stop now?

 

He sighs, choosing a different battle to fight, for he’s only who knows how much time and so many fronts to cover. “I don’t like who you’re working for.”

 

Belle scoffs, “You and the rest of the village.”

 

“I’m serious, Belles.”

 

There with that damned milk-name again; she wants to scream at him, she’s twenty-four and a killer, certainly too old to be called by her milk-name, but she refrains. Belle knows the quickest way out of this confrontation is to not have it, to hide from it—the coward’s way. Trick him with a mask of soothing bravado and he’ll be comforted enough to quit. She forces her face to thaw, her jaw to ease—to play the role of she knows he needs. “Papa, it’s not so bad.”

 

“ _Belle_ ,” the inventor implores, his tone making her look at him. “You can tell me.” He reaches his awkward hand that once built clanking machines the likes of which only seen through magic to her shoulder. It’s almost too far for him to reach from his chair, and Belle can’t quite stand to have him touch her when he’s like this—all knowing and _fatherly_ , like his concern matters when there’s no power behind it. She can’t stand it for too long--it’ll break her, and she’ll suddenly find herself acting _daughterly_.

 

_(Daughters are weak. Daughters forget things inventor’s sons would have never, forget the commanders ordered the adding of brimstone to the water, forget to tell their fathers, forget to be the one to carry the water jars, forget to stay and burry all that remained)._

 

She feels that burning hate flare, that stems from having to act the parent, the adult, which would be fine, if only he didn’t ask her to then play the child from time to time. She can do one or the other, but Belle can’t do both and keep her sanity intact, and at least one of them must.

 

She closes her eyes, and breaths slowly in and out. “It’s only for a little while,” her voice is gentle, lulling, the voice she finds herself using with Baelfire. “Until you’re a bit stronger, ‘till I save a bit more. Then we’ll leave again. Things’ll be better.”

 

He is silent, and she wonders if he sees right through her and her mockery of his heartfelt offer of solace, but after a moment, Maurice nods. Then he says the worst possible thing of all, “I’m sorry, Belle. I’m so very sorry.”

 

Belle doesn’t look away from the fire. Belle doesn’t say it’s fine.

 

It is an inauspicious start to the day, to say the least, and it tries her patience all before the crack of dawn.

 

They don’t speak for the rest of the morning, though they break bread together for a small meal. Afterward, Belle measures out a spoonful of sleep syrup for him.

 

The medicine is running out. The gotten gains from Melisande of Padirac, who gave it to her for nothing, shockingly. It is a kindness that still confuses Belle, but she certainly isn’t one to turn down charity—these days, she reserves her pride for situations where her father’s welfare is not to be benefited therefrom. Belle reminds herself to see what the local hedge witch stocks come market day.

 

“I don’t like that stuff.”

 

Belle sighs, frowning at the minimal amount left in the glass bottle. “I can’t leave you by yourself. You know—“

 

“I know. I know, Belles.” He drinks the water, grimacing, but without further argument. Afterwards, she goes to work, and her father to a counterfeit slumber.

 

* * *

With such an inauspicious start, she should have seen it coming. Perhaps she did, but a few minutes too late, as she knows is the curse she wears like a donned cloak—always nipping at the heels of an event, flapping in the wind, but never quite catching it.

 

It had all started days ago, when Baelfire had asked her where she’d put the salt in the larder one afternoon. “What need of you with salt?” She’d been dusting the floorboards on all fours.

 

The boy looks surprised, “For teeth cleaning of course. My jar ran out,” he holds up a little clay pot and rag she assumes is also a tool for the task.

 

“Oh, absolutely not. You’re not teasing me are you?” When the boy shakes his head, her eyes go wide, but really this should not shock her—she has removed herself and her father to the backwoods of all the lands, so to speak. Of course, they’d not the more modern ways in these parts. Sitting upright, the joke slips out before she can stop it, along with the unintentional patronizing, for even at their poorest, which is largely now, Belle and Maurice have kept to their regimen of chewing sticks with mint and bay leaves. “Certainly not in Avonlea anymore, are we?”

 

Baelfire looks confused, “What?”

 

Belle catches herself and the slip of the tongue. “It’s nothing—just something my mother used to say.” The boy’s expression doesn’t change. “It’s just to say that things are very different from where one used to be.”

 

“If you don’t clean your teeth with salt, how do you do it?”

 

“Yes, how do you do it, high-born?”

 

Her irritating employer stands in the doorway, returning at an inopportune time, as is his way. She’d very much like to correct him—for she’s _not_ high-born—but she refrains. “With a twig and herbs. It’s a better way to go about it, better for the teeth.” At least a more _fragrant_ method.

 

“Yes, and do you also bring a better way to dress in the morn, or do men still put on their trousers one leg at a time in your land too?”

 

She bristles, but leaves the quip untouched. However, she does not drop the issue, because she’s one of the few people over twenty in the village to still have all their teeth in their head. “Do you want him to get mouth-rot and need the barber to pull a few before he’s full grown like everyone else here, or will you try my way?”

 

He frowns, and Belle tries to think back, yes, perhaps she can remember the spinner with gaps in his teeth. “Fine.”

 

She gathers up the supplies the next day and institutes the change. Two chewing sticks, with sharpened ends for picking between the teeth and particularly stuck bits, as well as a bag of mint leaves for each of the men in her care—she’d have to add that to the garden, they needn’t be running to Old Agnes every time they required more herbs. Every once in a while, she plans to boil up a batch of rinse, with charcoal and apple blossoms, along with the herbs, for the polishing. Every month or so would suffice.

 

Baelfire takes to the practice fast enough. The same cannot be said for Rumpelstiltskin.

 

The morning her father plays at fire-starting and parenting, the Dark One is being particularly reticent, the disposition catching. She peels rutabagas, their skins flying away like bright rose petals. Belle plans to mash them into _neeps_ —the preparation local to this place, she’s learned—for that night’s supper, she catches site of the boy scrubbing at his teeth in the reflection of the glass-front medicine cabinet. “Don’t forget to scrub your tongue, Bae.”

 

The boy pauses, “Why?”

 

“For smell.”

 

“Papa doesn’t.” It’s one his most common of answer, Belle’s discovering. She can’t hold in the choked snort. It’s laughable, after all, taking dental advice from one who had yellow, pitted teeth.

 

“Something funny about the hearth, girl?” Her employer calls from across the room.

 

“No, sir,” she says, then she adds, because she’s always had a problem holding her tongue, “You’re right Baelfire, your papa doesn’t use his stick, but perhaps, young sir, you may do well to remember that your father has the teeth he has for that very reason.”

 

She doesn’t have to look up to know that Rumpelstiltskin stares at her, “I have the teeth I do, dearie, because I’m the Dark One.”

 

“Well, begging your pardon, sir, but even the Dark One should brush—you’ll certainly be less formidable to the ogres if you have to gum your food.”

 

Baelfire chuckles; the Dark One seethes.

 

* * *

She’s gone too far, he thinks, watching her, sitting smug and confident on his stool, peeling his rutabagas. No, no, this wouldn’t do at all. It’s clear to Rumpelstiltskin that he’s had too loose a hand, and now must remind her of her place.

 

One which depends upon his good humor. The good humor, he’s learning she enjoys trampling all over.

 

He bides his time, spinning idly, as he waits for his son to leave for the day. He watches as she gathers up their breakfast dishes and stops his son at the door with more of her ordering about. “Cold today, wear your cloak, Baelfire.” He watches as she fastens the collar clasp—silver, not cheap—with a smile and sure hands around his son’s neck. He watches as she waves him goodbye and goes back to the vegetables, starting to hum to herself, thinking him preoccupied with his wheel or his books.

 

Appearing before her, he grabs her under the arm, and pushes her against the wall. The maid calls out, startled, the movement upsetting both stool and bucket. He hears red rutabagas roll about on the floor. Pointing a mottled finger in her face, he says, “You think yourself quite the wit, don’t you?”

 

After the initial start wears off, she doesn’t look surprised, nor does she answer his question. Instead, Belle says, “I made you lose face in front of Bae. Didn’t much like that, did you?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin’s grip tightens. “Allow me to tell you something _you’d_ do well to remember, madam: do not censure me in front of my son, you are neither mistress nor mother in this house. You’re servant here. You’re here to do as I say, no more, no less. Do you understand the rules?” He gives her a final shake to reinforce the point and steps away quickly, she stumbles at the loss, but manages to nod. “Good. Remember it.”

 

After he says nothing further, Belle bends and begins to pick bruised rutabagas off their grand-for-this-place, wooden floor, but when Rumpelstiltskin walks away, she sits back on her heels, and though she was terrified at first, now she’s livid. He expects her to act the coward for him, but she’s known dangers just as great and near as the mighty Rumpelstiltskin. “Wait,” she calls.

 

Because she’s one who knows how to cut and stitch, clean and cauterize, and all while on the run. Because she knows hunger and sorrow, and before that, she’d glimpsed a land of promise, like the maunts had said, before it had been blown to smithereens.

 

Because the world keeps asking for more, more, more forgetting that after it every time it takes, takes, takes there’s a little less, less, less for Belle to divvy up the next time ‘round. Because it’s been a hell of a morning, but that’s nothing when the world’s always been just hell in some bastard god’s sodding hand basket.

 

“I’m afraid of you, alright?” she says. “You frighten me, so you don’t have to try so damn hard to reinforce the point.” He turns back, entirely shocked at the outburst. “I’m scared of you, but if you think I’m going to go about my business cowering every time you pass me by, then you’re sorely mistaken,” Belle says, because today’s as good a day to die as any, and suddenly, staring up, lecturing the Dark One from his wood floor, holding two rutabagas, death by snail doesn’t seem such a bad way to go.

 

Suddenly the hilarity of the situation hits her; Belle starts to laugh. It starts soft at first but she can’t stop, and it grows. She laughs so hard her hands shake, dropping the tubers to roll lopsided.

 

Rumpelstiltskin walks over, taking up one of the stray vegetables. His anger has drained away at her odd and disturbing fit of laughter. He stares down at the insane woman he’s hired to be his maid, at length, asking “Are you ill?”

 

Belle tries to calm herself enough to answer. “Probably,” she manages, but the end comes out more like a moan, and she puts a hand to her head, which she realizes is pounding.

 

From the laughter, from the world.

 

Dropping the vegetable into the bucket, he takes her hands and guides her to stand. Rumpelstiltskin leads her to the set of chairs near his spinning wheel. He seats himself in the other, so he can examine her face. Belle hears herself sigh, for there is some comfort in it to be touched in utility, without need or want for any response—so unlike her father’s hand on her shoulder this morning. She closes her eyes to it. She doesn’t realize her eyes have teared until she feels him wiping them away.

 

She blinks her eyes open to see Rumpelstiltskin looking surprisingly troubled. “You’re overwrought,” he says finally.

 

The look of concern wakes her up. “I’m fine,” she says, pulling back and wiping the tears away with her own two hands harshly. Gods, perhaps she is ill after all.

 

“I have a tendency of making women cry.” He says quietly, without looking at her.

 

“It’s not you, well, not _all_ you.”

 

He doesn’t say anything, but nods, absently. He stands and walks over to the cabinet, pulling out a bottle. She hears him uncork it and a medicinal scent fills the air. Taking his morning mug, he tosses what’s left of the ale from breakfast out the window without ceremony. She watches as he pours a little from the bottle into the cup. He then adds a few tea leaves and ladles out some steaming water from the cauldron on the hearth. He returns and hands her the cup.

 

“What is it?”

 

“Tonic. For the nerves.”

 

She’d never been one to understand healing. She’d done well enough in her Latin, and her mother’d said it was no different from helping with the chemicals and oils in her father’s shed, but in truth it was so different, and the body was an individual thing, where machines were much less touchy.

 

Trusting Rumpelstiltskin, she drinks from his mug and wonders at his lack of aversion to sharing his own cup with her. After a few moments she feels a calm come over her but also a focusing of the mind. The headache eases considerably, retreating to the base of her skull. She sighs, setting the mug on the small side table, “Thank you.”

 

Still standing, he examines her face again, and for one bent on convincing her of his deadly capabilities, he touches her so freely, that she can’t help but wonder at it. Perhaps he is this free with everything he considers under his authority. “Belle.” He says the name like he’s weighing a sack of finely-sifted flour for purchase. “You don’t look well, but neither do you look ill.”

 

She laughs, and the sound dislodges his hand. “Oh, I’m sure I look ill.”

 

He frowns. “You are physically incapable of keeping your mouth shut, aren’t you?”

 

“Aye, or so I’ve been told.”

 

“Others agree?”

 

“Oh many. Though I tried once.”

 

“Aye, and how long did that last?”

 

“A day, I think. Maybe two.”

 

Despite himself, despite how much he truly wants to pummel her like an unruly piglet, he laughs—it’s a condescending scoff, but it’s laughter all the same. He sighs, leaning against the table, thinking the matter over, “Is it really so difficult, what I command?” She tilts her head listening. “I’ll not argue the matter, remember your place, or lose it. I’m not to be a fool in my own house.”

 

Belle nods, “I’ll remember.”

 

“See that you do.” Rumpelstiltskin offers her the mug again. “Finish it.” She obeys; there at least, he thinks, she followed one order. “Collect yourself,” he says, straightening. “I’ll just, um, check on the sheep.” He leaves her alone to compose herself, and when he returns much later, the rutabagas have all been collected and the floor cleaned, as well as his empty mug.

 

* * *

Morraine visits one afternoon.

 

She finds Belle pruning and planting in the garden at the side of the house. The patch of earth seems to be getting better, or perhaps the maid just wants it to be so and has stared at it for too long to be impartial. She’s thinking over how very much she’d like to transplant a patch of wild roses she’s seen in the forest between their houses, if she can only stand a few thorns or get her hands on some ox-hide gloves, when the young love of her master’s son walks up. “Belle?” she calls.

 

The older woman smiles up to her, “Morraine, well met. I’m sorry, but Baelfire isn’t here. His father took him on a trip for the afternoon—something to do with the sheering I think it was.”

 

“I know,” the young girl says. “I came to help you.” She lifts a large burlap sacks she’s brought, “Baelfire said you’re working on the garden, so I brought you these, from ours at home.”

 

The little soldier girl has brought the start of lavender and garlic, as well as sage. Morraine prefaces the last by saying softly, “Mother says it helps with fits of hysteria.” Splendid, this meant the whole town knew of her father’s malady. All the same, Belle thanks the young woman.

 

They work together in silence, digging and planting. Morraine knows her way about a garden as well as Belle, and together they make quick work of the new additions. They both have questions, but Belle does not press conversation, for she remembers those first few weeks, when all she wanted was someone to let her forget, to which her hysterical father was no help. The questions could wait for when they were less pressing and less unsettling to all the war wounds both women shared.

 

Morraine leaves before the boys return home, promising to call on her again soon. Belle hopes she’s in earnest.

 

* * *

It’s not truly turned to the warmth of summer, but winter is well forgotten by the world, and that means it’s sheering season, apparently. They hadn’t had many sheep in the Southlands, at least in her household, and as the daughter of an inventor, they’d always purchased fabric for her mother to sew herself with her fine, little stitches. This clothe and thread making is all new to her, but sheep sheering, Belle learns, is a very work intensive activity, preoccupying both men of the house for long durations of time between meals. This is why Belle decides sheep sheering is also the perfect time to have a look about the house.

 

Specifically at the book shelf and Rumpelstiltskin’s desk, the contents of which she’s wondered after for sometime.

 

She peaks out the window in the late morning; both men are hard at work. She slowly sweeps her way over to the desk, setting the broomstick near enough that she hopes to grab it, should they decide to return to the house. Taking one last cautionary glance out the window, Belle looks to the desk. Four books are stacked at present. She picks up the first, for it’s been so long since she held an actual book. It’s a treatise on medicinal sciences and the human body. It’s new, and she brings it up to her face to inhale that scent of paper, entirely it’s own.

 

The next three she finds are on basic chemistry, which she recognizes immediately, another on medicine, and the last, a Latin dictionary, that old language she knows so well, the one in which the clerics and maunts sing their chants and make their petitions to their god, Only Host.

 

Below it all, lies Rumpelstilskin’s secret ledger. Belle smirks—what could he be keeping inside, that keeps him so busy night after night. She lifts the ridiculously large cover open to find that it looks an awful lot like a student’s primer.

 

He’s practicing his reading and writing, Belle realizes.

 

A hand snaps the book shut. She jumps, Rumpelstiltskin standing flush behind her. “You don’t skirt, but you do snoop, which is ten times worse,” he growls.

 

“I wasn’t—“

 

“Don’t lie, or what else would you call having your sticky fingers in my things? What were you up to?” he asks.

 

“I was just curious. I like books.” She tries to look at him from over her shoulder, but finds him huffing too heavily for the mere exertion of anger—Rumpelstiltskin’s embarrassed, Belle realizes. “There’s no shame, in trying to learn to read,” she says softly.

 

He steps back like she’s burned him or screamed at him. “Shame? What do you know of that, you who looks down on this whole place, on all of us with your manners and your high speech. You think yourself quite a cut above us, there’s no denying.”

 

Belle blushes instantly, for she had not recognized it until that moment, but he’s right, and he’s read her as easily as she’d read his ledger. She does think herself above this Frontlands village, but in this, she also recognizes she and her master are cut from the same cloth. “’Us’?” she chuckles, “So snails when you choose and one of them the rest of the time. That’s useful.”

He grumbles, putting a hand to his hand, “Must we have this conversation again?”

 

Belle turns to the window, leaving him to his indulgent griping—he won’t hurt her. He’s not angry enough today. She watches Baelfire coral sheep outside. “Can Bae read?

 

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs, “Why teach sheep for the slaughter to read, or so our village reckoned.”

 

She toys with the corner of the shut ledger, “You know more than most.” Then, she offers, more out of a desire to be amongst books and the written word once again, in any capacity, “I could teach you, if you’d like.”

 

He’s silent for a moment, but answers with derision, “I don’t need your help.”

 

“No, but it would certainly be faster than you practicing on your own every night.”

 

“And in exchange, for I know you don’t offer for nothing? What are you looking to get out of this deal?”

 

Belle thinks, truly she offered out of her love of all things written, but she’s not without need (and she’s no charitable Melisande). She thinks of the sleep syrup running truly, very low now and her father with his early rousings and empty days in their dirty hovel. “I want a day. To myself.”

 

“A day off,” Rumpelstilskin thinks it over, a hand to his chin. “A whole day?”

 

“Half then.” Belle wonders if he’ll make her beg; she wonders if she will.

 

“No,” he says, and she goes wide eyed—does she really work for such a slave driver, as to demand her presence the whole of the week?—before adding, “You’ll teach my son as well, then you shall have your day.”

 

She smiles, nodding, “Alright.” Teaching Baelfire would probably be more enjoyable than the teaching of his father.

 

“We’ll start tonight.”

 

“Yes, tonight.”

 

* * *

The one good that came from Rumpelstiltskin turning the blacksmith’s son into snail, now haggling with Hoolihan is much easier. On that at least, Belle cannot complain. What’s more he’s begun to talk to her again. They’ve both agreed to a low-end of honest price for potatoes and that the weather turning warmer is most agreeable, when she bids him good evening, starting down the thoroughfare back to Rumpelstiltskin’s.

 

However, a voice stops her. “Aye, mum, just a moment!”

 

She turns, expecting Hoolihan, but instead sees the blacksmith. He’s bending low to the ground, holding up a small coin, “You dropped this, I think.”

 

Belle walks up, well knowing she dropped no coin. What’s more the one the father blacksmith holds out to her is like none Rumpelstiltskin gave her, but she didn’t survive the ogre war without making herself sharp in discerning a hidden message. “Ah, how silly of me. I thank you, kind sir,” she says loud enough for those close by to hear. Leaning in to take the coin, she whispers, “Did it work?”

 

“Aye. Come by at dark,” he says, barely audible, before standing and cordially tipping his head, leaving her.

 

Belle sighs to herself, walking through the forest, not looking forward to another late night.

 

* * *

It’s very late and entirely dark when she knocks upon the backdoor of the home of the blacksmith. It opens immediately. “Quick, be quick.”

 

She hurries inside, curiosity peaked at the pageant over secrecy. Once locked in—though that would do little good against the Dark One—she looks expectantly to the blacksmith. The father doesn’t stand alone, she realizes, his eldest son stands behind him. Perhaps this wasn’t such a fine idea, Belle suddenly wonders. “So, it worked? Melisande, she knew of a way?”

 

The father shakes his head. “She did not, no, but she knew of one who could. The one she knew changed him back.”

 

Belle nods, smiling. “Good. I’m very glad for you.” She spares a glance at the scowling elder son. “You do know he should never come back to the village, yes?”

 

The father nods, “No, he can never come back, but,” and he stops, at a loss for words. “I think my son may have brought some mischief upon you.”

 

“Beg your pardon?”

 

The blacksmith opens his mouth, but the son cuts him off, “Enough of this. I’m too tired for it.” He turns to Belle. “Along the road, leaving the city, I met one who looks for you.”

 

Her stomach drops and she is instantly, deeply afraid. “What?”

 

For just a moment, the son looks remorseful, but his face hardens again. Shrugging he says, “I knew not what to say. Says he asks everyone after a woman matching your description. Said he knew you.”

 

“Anyone could say that.”

 

“Said he was your betrothed.”

 

Belle scoffs, “I’ve no betrothed.” Not exactly a lie, and it troubles her conscience not in the least. “What did you tell him?”

 

“I knew not your name, but I said perhaps in our village he would find you.”

 

She stamps a foot, “ _Merde_.”

 

“He was on the road to two other cities first, farther west and north than here, following after other leads, but then he said he would come this way.”

 

Belle groans, putting a hand to her head.

 

“There was something strange to him,” the son continues, suddenly not even wearing the little guilt of his earlier words. “He would not tell the name of the one he searched after. What _is_ your name, lass?”

 

The second son wears a look of one ready to start a witch hunt or perhaps a book burning. “Marguerite, but everyone just calls me Margie,” Belle lies seamlessly. Then, she subtly threatens, just as seamlessly. “I have to go, never know when the Dark One might call.”

 

The son smirks, “This late? I’m sure.”

 

“ _Fallon_ ,” the father reprimands, at his son’s impure insinuation. “We owe her Duncan’s life.” The second son, Fallon, does not seem impressed. His eyes show disdain for what he clearly thinks she offers when the Dark One comes to call.

 

“Glad for your son,” she mutters, unlocking the door on her own and hurrying out, brusquely. She needed to get home; she needed to think and plan.

 

Half-way home, Belle realizes she didn’t ask what the man looked like who asked after her. Though, truly it could be a number of people—perhaps the one they sought wasn’t even her. However, she doubts this, since her luck is largely non-existent.

 

At best, the man spoke truly, and it’s her betrothed come to claim her, which would be irksome. At worst, it’s an assassin. Then of course there’s everything in-between.

 

She has some time, for two cities will take weeks at least, if not more. She’d just have to save harder, see to better medicine for her father, and then they’d get on the move again. That’s the key, as soon as her father takes a turn up, they’ll be free to find a better place to hide.

 

Worst comes to worst, Belle thinks walking through the forest, as a last resort, just maybe, she could appeal to her employer, for she doubts he’d have any sympathy for an assassin out to squeeze the rest of the blood from those that should have been war victims.

 

A last resort, but perhaps not so unlikely.

 

Though, the last resort begs the question: would he have any sympathy for her, learning all she’s done?

 

* * *

 

The reading lessons add a soothing end to her days at Rumpelstiltskin’s fine home. After supper, she instructs Baelfire, who is a quick study Belle finds. Rumpelstiltskin has purchased for his son a ledger. It’s rather small, at Belle’s urging, for she’d cautioned that the boy’d be less likely to trip going up and down his ladder with a book smaller than the tabletop. The master had frowned at her tone, but the father had taken note. Her employer, she discovers prefers to work on his own, during her instruction of his son, but he always sits close enough to listen in—though whether to oversee her efforts or glean further instruction, she knows not.

 

After finishing his lesson and going upstairs to bed, she teaches Baelfire’s father, whose progress is slow, but steady. One night, she asks him, “How did you learn to read in the first?”

 

He pauses at his large ledger—upon which Belle’s now allowed to look. “I was taught a little when I was in the war,” he finally says, hesitantly, and then adds with a bitter edge, “when they still thought of us as soldiers and not sacrifices.”

 

He speaks of a time, the cusp of which she knows so well. She taps where he’s been writing in Latin, “No, that one’s irregular in the past, remember? Change the base form.” He crosses out the word and writes it again, proper this time, without her having to spell it out for him. “Aye, much better.”

 

* * *

 

 

It’s after supper, but not pitch dark outside—summer’s coming, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, as he reads, one ear turned to his son and his maid. They sit working at the table. Bae reads aloud, Belle correcting him every so often in his pronounciation. She stands behind, working on food for tomorrow, rolling little white balls from mashed up potatoes and laying them upon a wooden cutting board in neat rows.

 

So, as usual, he half thinks her quite mad.

 

Apparently, he’s not the only one. Baelfire pauses, looking over the cutting board and in her bowls. “What’s this for, Belle?” his voice full of the awe his son holds for the only woman in their life. Rumpelstiltskin too, pauses in his reading.

 

“They’re called _croquettes_.”

 

Ridiculous, they ought to be called, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, after seeing all the effort required in their preparation.

 

“ _Croquettes_ ,” Bae repeats.

 

“Yes, that’s it. They were one of my favorites growing up,” she laughs lightly, rolling another little ball between her palms, powdered with flour, “and when I worked at a fine manor house in the summers, the cook used to sneak a few to me. Eventually, he just taught me the recipe, seeing as I liked them so much.” He can’t see her, but he knows she smiles, hears it in her voice. “Oh, Francis. Francis first cook.”

 

His son as well, smiles in tone, “Where is he now?”

 

Belle pauses, for just a second before answering, “Oh, still making _croquettes_ , I imagine.”

 

“And do you eat them, like this?”

 

“You could, but that wouldn’t be very good at all. I’ll fry them tomorrow, that’s what the flour’s for.”

 

“Then why make them tonight?”

 

“They have to set up—stick together—overnight. If they don’t, then they fall to pieces when you fry them. I think you’ll like them very much.”

 

“Aye, sounds good.”

 

Suddenly Belle gasps, “It’s later than I thought, time for your father’s lesson. We’ll have to finish up the passage tomorrow. Off to bed,” she shoos the boy.

 

Once gone, the dishes cleaned, and the _croquettes_ layed and covered upon a high shelf, Rumpelstiltskin asks her, “Is it true, what you said?”

 

He hears her walk up behind him, sighing, “Unless the dead have need of a first cook then no, it wasn’t.”

 

“Why did you lie to my son?”

 

“Oh, I don’t know, because I like it better when he smiles, I suppose.”

 

“You do him no favors by coddling him,” he says, though he’s too oft guilty of the same.

 

“Aye, and the world does none by breaking him. Oughtn’t he have a little more time?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin pauses at his writing, isn’t this more than half the very reason he’d taken the knife and the pledge of the Dark One—the other being for himself, to cover his cowardice, but that’s beside the point. “Aye, he ought.”

 

They are silent, both thinking thoughts of war and children.

 

“You can go.”

 

“Your lesson?”

 

He returns his quill to the inkwell, “I’m tired. We’ll pick it up tomorrow.” We’ve time, he thinks, for at least one night’s rest.

 

* * *

When the young sir mentions that the grove of cherry trees deep in the forest has finally ripened, Belle can’t resist. _Croquettes_ weren’t the only treat Francis first cook taught her to make, and she hasn’t had sweets in sometime. They find a tall ladder in the back of the larder. It’s old and missing two rungs, near the bottom, but it will do the job well enough, she thinks.

 

Together, Baelfire leads her into the woods to this strange grove he’s found. “Who planted it?” she asks.

 

The boy shrugs. “Old Saorla perhaps, it’s always been there, long as I’ve known, but it’s too far for most to remember or come to gather.” He’s certainly right about that, for it takes them most the morning to get to the place, but once they arrive, Belle thinks it worth it, for the cherries look fine as any in her Southlands.

 

They get to work, Bae at first very determined to be the one to climb the ladder or the trees or both, but Belle puts her foot down. “I’ll not have you falling and breaking your neck on me, young sir.” She messes up his hair, “I’d miss you too much.” She neglects to mention that she wouldn’t have to miss him overlong, for his father’d make quick work of her immediately thereafter.

 

It’s decided that Belle will climb up and shake the limbs to dislodge all the ripe cherries. The boy resigns himself to gathering up and sorting the fallen cherries into the baskets they’ve brought along.

 

It’s easy work, easy enough that Belle finds her thoughts drifting. She thinks over how she needs to get on the move again, but her father shows no signs of improvement. She thinks of the paths she’d take in the woods, should they need to escape in the night. She thinks over which cities to run toward.

 

She thinks and thinks, and with a shake too many the rung she stands upon breaks, dropping her. Belle calls out, but just as quickly as she fell, she lands in strong arms, the arms of Rumpelstiltskin.

 

Belle blinks up at him, shocked, an arm about his neck. “Thank you,” she offers.

“ _Papa_ , that was amazing,” Baelfire exclaims.

 

At his son’s words, he releases her unceremoniously. Stepping back awkwardly, he says, “No matter.”

 

All three know this means that Rumpelstiltskin has been following them, and though fortuitous as it is, one member of the party isn’t exactly pleased to know he’s still spying on her. She looks up to see her employer staring. He looks away immediately—at least he’s discomfited at being caught, she thinks. However, as Baelfire continues to praise his father on the rescue, Belle finds he’s not the only one discomfited, willing away the blush she feels on her cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neeps – Scottish name for mashed rutabagas  
> Salt and rag, as well as the chewing stick method are real teeth cleaning methods from the Middle Ages


	5. Chapter 5

Rumpelstiltskin has a problem on his hands.

 

A problem worse than mold in a batch of fleeces, worse than a broken wheel axel two miles out of town, worse than the drought two years’ past, worse than that time Bae took sick and the fever wouldn’t break—well, not worse than the last. _Nothing_ since had been worse than Bae’s taking sick, with the exception of Hordor and his men—but Rumpelstiltskin had certainly taken care of _that_ , hadn’t he?—freeing him to now worry over a problem only slightly less troublesome, a problem of the worst kind.

 

Rumpelstiltskin has a woman problem.

 

He stands pensive, staring out the rippled glass window, watching his son play kick ball with their maid. With an exceptionally strong kick, her shoe goes flying. Baelfire retrieves it for her, ever thoughtful. The father watches as his son returns the shoe, making a little bow. He hears Bae offer it up to her, kneeling, “Here, milady.” Rumpelstiltskin thinks back to that first day, and how even then, his son knew this bur of a woman was to be addressed as such.

 

The problem curtsies, a tickled smile playing at her lips. She nods, accepting the shoe, with a dainty hand perched on his son’s shoulder, “Why thank you.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin frowns.

 

It isn’t that he doesn’t like her. That’s not the problem at all. In fact, the list of things he likes about her is growing, quickly. If hard pressed for an answer, he could safely say he likes her cooking, as long as she keeps to local dishes and not that stuff from her homelands (wherever they may be--he’d yet to whittle the answer from her). Too light and airy for his liking. Too much butter. In any case, her cooking’s certainly better than his.

 

He likes that naughty little joy he gets, knowing one born and bred as high as she must answer to his beck and call, launder his clothes, and clean his chamber pot daily. He likes the way her mouth sets firmly in a sloped line that says quite clearly, I’m thinking of some very nasty names to call you, but I won’t because you’re the reason I’m fed, whenever he reminds her to keep to her proper place.

 

He likes the way her face flared to bright red when he’d called her dim-witted three days back, over one of ewes getting out the pen, and he likes the way she flushes when he’s made her carry something particularly heavy.

 

He likes the way her left foot lifts off the ground, just a touch, whenever she bends at the waist to pick up something—a spoon, or sock, or some bauble of Bae’s—likes that she did it when she’d dusted the ladder rungs, and he, sitting at his desk, could watch her, through the reflection in the window, catching a glimpse of her stockinged calf.

 

_Aye, she’s fine looking enough, but you could have done more with her dressings, for one who was once a spinner._

 

Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One, starts at the voice, still unused to the ever-present Zoso. He silently replies, “She’s not a crossroad’s whore.”

 

 _True enough_. Snickering, Zoso provides a mental picture of the town harlot to the old spinnerman.

 

“I don’t do that,” he growls. “I don’t pay for pleasure.”

 

_You will._

 

Belle shrieks, and Rumpelstiltskin’s attention snaps to the fore—damn, he’d just thought of her by name, a problem indeed—however, he finds nothing amiss. It’s started to rain outside, taking her and Baelfire unawares. However, this has upset neither one. They smile, surprised at the shower, and the maid looks free, freer than he’s ever seen her, and as she throws her head back in laughter, he realizes it’s the first he’s heard her laugh without disdain. Catching Baelfire under the arms, she spins him up off the ground, around in circles.

 

Rumpelstiltskin’s never been one to play with his son—the poor have not time for games, and he considers it late to be learning with Bae nigh on manhood. As he watches them run about in the rain, free and playing together, something dark and hot flares in him; he feels jealous.

 

_We should just get rid of her and be done with it._

“No,” he thinks.

 

 _Useless fool—how do we know she’s not some spy, sent here for the dagger? You know better than most, strangers met upon the road aren’t to be trusted_ , the last Zoso adds with an ironic chuckle.

 

“I can’t. Bae, he loves her.”

 

Zoso groans. _Always making concessions for your bastard son. You ought save the jealousy for something that’s actually yours._

“He’s mine,” Rumpelstiltskin says, watching Baelfire first climb and then jump from one of the trees in the yard—so fearless.

 

Zoso scoffs, the demon within knowing there’s a foothold to be found in this particular insecurity. _How do you know? Something so brave and bright—how could that come from any part of you?_

The father makes no reply at the well placed jab. The voice retreats back into the depths of the Dark One, having made his blow for the day, leaving Rumpelstiltskin to brood alone. He watches out the window without actually seeing. He doesn’t hear the door open, doesn’t hear Baelfire come inside.

 

“Papa, the wool needs to be out of the rain. What do you think, house or larder?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head, looking up, “What?”

 

“The wool? Can’t let it get wet. Where do you want me to put it, inside the house or the larder?” the boy stands at the doorway, drenched from the rain.

 

“Larder’s fine,” he says.

 

Baelfire nods, running off. He brushes past Belle as she slips off her shoes to come inside. Standing at the doorway, she wrings out the edges of her skirt. Not bothering to shut the door, she tip-toes over to the hearth, trying not to drip too terribly. Taking off her headscarf, she says, “Someone’s quiet.”

 

Her employer grunts at the statement, but neither turns from the window, nor makes any intelligible reply. Belle walks over to the window, reaching past him, she unlatches it and leans out, wringing the water from her head scarf. “I expected howls at the injustice of wet foot prints on your fine, wood floor.”

 

Her words and the blast of fresh, damp air awaken him, though still in a dour mood. He takes in her face, framed by wet curls, the water making them darker than usual. She’s smirking at him—is she teasing him? Surely not, Rumpelstiltskin thinks.

 

His face reveals his confusion, for hers falls in response. “Something the matter?” she asks, leaning back inside.

 

He shakes his head, “No, not at all.” He frowns hearing a strange pitter-patter. Eyeing her once over, he realizes the sound’s water dripping off her skirt. “You’re a right mud puddle. Dry yourself by the fire, before you make a mess to be cleaned.”

 

“Ah,” the maid says, frowning. “There it is.”

 

“What?”

 

“The Rumpelstiltskin I know.” She walks back over to the fire and bends down on her haunches, stoking it up. She shakes her hair, without care to the water it flings about. Rolling his eyes at the incomprehensible girl, he turns back to the window. He can see Baelfire making fast work of dragging the bushels of wool into the larder.

 

Apparently, he’s not the only one watching. “You’ve got a good boy there,” she says, praise and not a little affection evidenced in her voice.

 

“Aye. The best boy,” he replies quietly. He’s silent for a time, watching Baelfire finish with the last basket. The child stands, hands on his hips, taking stock of the work he’s done. “Can hardly call him mine,” Rumpelstiltskin whispers to himself. To the window. To Zoso. To his lost wife.

 

Certainly _not_ to the forgotten maid by the fire. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

Shite, he’d said that out loud. He turns, unsure how to proceed. Especially when she looks up at him, hair curling more than ever, too many questions in her framed face. She’s caught him so off guard, he can hardly help but answer honestly, the confession out his mouth before he regains control, “I—sometimes, I wonder, that is, if he’s even mine.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snorts, incredulous. “Of course he’s yours.” She stands, rewrapping her hair. “He’s got your eyes,” the maid says without cost or plan, not even bothering to look at her master, like she isn’t making a statement of great impact. “Or did, well, you know, _before_.” Then, she plucks up one of the baskets of cherries from the grove and takes them out through the open door. She sits on the covered front porch steps and begins to pit them, humming to herself.

 

Rumpelstiltskin stands, unmoving, staring out the front door. It’s the first affirmation of paternity he’s ever had, and even delivered in her briny tone, the words have rendered him speechless and dumbstruck.

 

After a while, Baelfire comes round to the front of the house and takes a seat beside Belle, lending a hand with the pitting.

 

Yes, Rumpelstiltskin most certainly has a problem on his hands.

 

* * *

Belle greets the day before the day itself awakes, but this morning, she smiles, stretching on the dirt floor—today she does not work for Rumpelstiltskin, and though she’s work to do, she’s her own master. She takes breakfast with her father, promises that soon they’ll have days where he doesn’t have to sleep, though whether he registers her words behind his blank eyes she knows not. At the last moment, before leaving for the village proper, she slips off her headscarf, letting her hair have day of its own as well as she.

 

The weather turns lovely, one of those spring days that is hot in the sun and chilly in the shade. The walk is calming; she does not sense a hidden presence in the chilly shadows, the barely perceptible change in the air signally the presence of Rumpelstiltskin, to which Belle’s grown accustomed to recognizing some of the time—or at the least strongly suspecting.

 

She is alone at long, long last.

 

Upon entering the village, she seeks out the hedge witch, Old Agnes first. The old woman’s little hovel is as pathetic and in as much need of repair as Belle’s own. It’s hidden off the main path, past the home of the butcher. The air is thick with the pungent smell of boiling of animal fat and tossed out entrails. The environment has a way of repelling all but the visitor with certain and necessary purpose—perhaps Belle should take a lesson from Agnes.

 

She comes upon the little hut’s entrance, the door open and curtain strung up to the side for the day by a string that ends in little chimes that play flat notes every time the wind blows. With the door open, Belle hears the voices before she can see the occupants.

 

“That rain ran off with all the Wild Carrots, eh?” Old Agnes’ shrill voice calls. The Southlands’ girl has only a little difficulty with the woman’s thick accent, not to mention the fact that her words are muffled by the ever-present pipe in her mouth.

 

“Sadly yes—if you’ve Vervaine, I’d prefer that over the Tansy.” The second voice, a woman’s, Belle recognizes not.

 

“You might have to make due with the Mugwort. I’ll see what I’ave about.”

 

The other voice sighs, “Fine, but be quick—I’d rather not miss the noon hour.” Belle steps in the doorway, and the owner of the impatient voice looks up. “How now, Agnes who’s this little bloom upon your threshold?” The woman, older than Belle, but surely not yet forty years, with dark blonde hair, and a dress showing the most bosom she’s seen in the village, takes stock of the younger girl.

 

The hedge witch returns from the back of her little house. Looking up, she says, pipe still clutched in her mouth, in the hole where her right incisor used to reside, “Oh her? That’s the stranger. Lunatic’s daughter.” She adds, with more insinuation than the first, “Works for the old spinner.”

 

The woman’s eyes light with recognition. Smirking she says, “Oh, yes, I know you. Rather thought I might see you in my part of town, eh?”

 

“Here’s your Mugwort.” Agnes shoves a little bag of dried herbs into the other woman’s well-endowed chest. “You know what to do with it. On your way now.”

 

Clicking her tongue at the old woman, the younger smirks and says, “No need to be like that. I buy your stock as well as any.” She points past the witch to one of the shelves along the wall. “And that’s an awfully big jar for you to be selling to just poor old me and mine.” Sniggering to herself, as she walks out past Belle, she turns back. “Who knows, maybe that’s what the Dark One’s little maid is here for.”

 

Belle enters fully, frowning. “Who was that?”

 

Old Agnes shakes her head, her gray broom-bristle locks remaining stock still, despite the movement, “That was Carlotta.”

 

“Carlotta?”

 

“Aye, of hangman’s tree crossing.” The old woman adds a touch quieter, “the sellslove.” Ah, that would explain the copious amount of breast on display, as well as the herbs—though in her lands they called it Bitter Buttons. Changing topic, the witch asks, “The usual pipe stuffings for your spinner?”

 

 _He’s not mine_ , she wants to correct, but holds her tongue, for she’d a task to be accomplished. “No, actually I need something for my father.”

 

The old hag snorts, smoke coming out the pipe in bulbous puffs. “Oh, girl, I’ve nothing for madness, and you’ll be want to find anyone who has—“

 

“No, not for that.” Belle looks around the shop, for something that might do. The shelves are made from partially hewn logs, cut to a right angle on two sides. The maker’s neglected removing the bark from the third, exposed edge. It gives the hut a wild, untamed feel. “I need something to help my father sleep while I’m at work.” She passes the witch her almost-empty bottle of Melisande’s sleep syrup, eying the hanging bunches of plants, hung without rhyme or reason from the rafters. “Something like this.”

 

Taking the cob pipe from her mouth, she accepts the bottle. Uncorking it, she takes a strong whiff. Agnes coughs, wet and surprised, “Gods girl, sleep or death?” she asks.

 

“He takes it freely.” When he’s of a mind. Belle isn’t proud, but if there is another answer, it eludes her. She sure as hellfire isn’t going to answer to this old hag over the choice, however.

 

“Aye, and ass’ll go through fire with the right blindfold.”

 

Before Belle can bite back that she didn’t ask the witch’s opinion on the matter, the old woman shakes her head and passes back the bottle. “I’ve none of whatever this be.” She waves a lazy hand around to her shop,

 

“Not the same, just something like it.”

 

“Haven’t got that either. The little I’ve here does the trick for children, cutting first tooth and the like—won’t do nothing for large a man as your da.” She turns away from Belle, sitting at a small table sorting dried flowers and roots. “You’d be better off giving him Padair’s bottled spirits.”

 

“I’m not getting my father drunk.”

 

The hedge witch raises an eyebrow, “Be little difference to my eyes.”

 

Belle grumbles, turning on her heel to leave. She’d just have to hope the apothecary would have something suitable—more expensive, but it is her only other option,

 

“Marcas’ll tell you no different—better off saving your steps and walking to the tavern.”

 

Belle curses the ancient woman with words that would’ve made even her father blanch, but says nothing further.

 

* * *

 

Rumpelstiltskin finds his day slow and strange. He’s all alone, with Baelfire having run out to play with the village boys, and the girl being absent.

 

At first, he had set out to wash the wool of dirt and thistles, the weather being warm and dry, but that had proven too difficult without his boy present to help, and what’s more, he can’t find the proper laundry basket. Fool of a maid must’ve put it someplace ridiculous.

 

He decides instead to work at his books. Sitting down he copies the verbs which he’s currently memorizing, but three pages in, realizes he’s mixed up the formal and informal pronouns. What’s more for the life of him, he can’t recall the difference between past and future conditional. The girl had explained it three different ways—all of which equally amounted to no help whatsoever. Damn girl.

 

And where is Bae? Bae would remember.

 

Rumpelstiltskin decides to take a break. Do a little spinning. That would clear his head. At the wheel he hardly need pay attention, his fingers knowing better than he. He finds his rhythm soon enough, and the action is lulling.

 

So lulling in fact, Rumpelstiltskin begins to hum without realizing it. He hums one of the maid’s tunes for a few minutes, until on a particular high note, he catches himself. His hands and mouth halt immediately. Very odd that he should be mimicking one of her little ditties. He glares at one of the baskets of cherries sitting on the side table in front of his wheel. Stupid girl.

 

That reminds him, the maid broke his ladder. That certainly is a pressing matter. Weather is temperamental this time of year. Rumpelstiltskin looks at the bright sun shining in through the window—that could change. What if rained? That might reveal a hole in the roof he ought patch. Or perhaps, what if Bae threw his ball and it stuck up atop there or the larder. Couldn’t have his boy trying to climb up, jump from one of the tree limbs. That’d be just something Bae would try.

 

Yes, they needed that ladder replaced with all haste.

 

Well, Rumpelstiltskin would have to see the carpenter and purchase a new one. If he just happens to check on his son along the way, so much the better. That would bring him past Old Saorla’s place. Not an all together unpleasant idea—see what the strange thing did with her coveted day. Two birds, one arrow, and all that.

 

As Rumpelstiltskin dons his cloak, he tries to ignore Zoso’s snickering.

 

* * *

“I’ve nothing like that here, lass.”

 

The old hag had been right, damn her. “Please, you must have some ideas,” she implores. Belle eyes the properly labeled bottles along the shelves—proper wooden slab shelves from the carpenter, not the mangled half hewn hearth logs in the witch’s hut. She picks a bottle up, but Marcas, the apothecary, takes it out her hand, setting it back down, “That’s for childbirth.”

 

Turning, she follows at his heel like a puppy, as he stocks his shelves. The shop is rather large and finely built. The apothecary did well enough, apparently. “You must know of a way, or at the least where to get something.”

 

The man setting his basket of bottles and jars to be distributed on the counter toward the back of the shop, sighs. He glares at Belle, before rubbing a hand over his eyes. Finally, he says, “You don’t have money for the likes of that.”

 

Belle cringes. He speaks the truth, for she hasn’t money enough to place some far off and lofty order. She bites her cheek, deliberating. At length, she decides to use her last bit of leverage, the bit she’s always wishing the villagers to put out of mind. “You do know for whom I work.”

 

Marcas scoffs, “Aye, I know.” Shaking his head, he says, “And I doubt he gives care enough to help his wait-staff, no matter to what ends you _wait_ upon him.”

 

Belle frowns at implication. The man notes her scowl and raises his hands in apology. “I mean no offense, mistress, but that line won’t pay your tab, and threat of the Dark One alone won’t move me to allow you the trespass—”

 

“ _Marcas!_ ”

 

“Oh the gods,” he groans at the tittering voice in the doorway. Belle turns to see three village girls, pale and pretty youthful things. “Back again? Told you well enough last week: I can’t help you, and anything in my shop’ll sooner burn your hairs as bronze them, you foolish hens.”

 

“But can’t we just try some of this,” the girl in front picks up a bottle near the door, and Belle rolls her eyes at their whining, turning away to mull over her own problems. Surely there was some answer—she just hadn’t thought of it yet. She thinks over their last remaining possessions of any substantial worth, though hardly much at that. There is her father’s smallest tool kit, her necklace and ring, and her mother’s book. None would fetch much, but it might be worth a try. Perhaps she’d just have to swallow her pride and ask her employer for the help. The thought alone leaves a foul taste in her mouth.

 

“Yes, that’s all well and good, but I don’t know how the festival a village next fills my stores any fuller,” the apothecary grunts.

 

“But _Marcas_ ,” one girl pleads—Belle doesn’t try to tell the three apart, as they may as well have shared one face, as similar as they are to each other—pulling on the apothecary’s arm. The motion knocks a bottle from a nearby shelf. It falls with a smash, causing the girls to scream in alarm and the shopkeep to shout a curse.

 

“Now you’ve done it,” he says, staring down at the broken glass. “Out! Out with you.” The three run away, clutching one another. “Mighty lucky I don’t make you pay,” he yells after them.

 

“What did they want?” Belle asks, not truly caring, more trying to bide her time in the shop.

 

Bending over, he picks up the largest pieces, using his apron to glove his hand. “Potion to turn their hair lighter. Wool for brains, those three,” he bemoans, walking over to the counter to retrieve a broom for the rest of the glass shards. “I could sooner spin straw into gold than turn their heads yellow.”

 

The maid recognizes the local saying— _around here, we say it to mean an impossible task_. Then, she recognizes what the girls had been wanting. “I can do that,” Belle says, eyes wide.

 

Marcas stands, narrowing his eyes at her, skeptical. “I doubt that, stranger.”

 

Belle sees a way out, suddenly—the hope of it yellow as straw or gold. “No really, I can.” It’s true. One summer when she’d worked in that manor laundry room, the young staff girls, and even a few of the nobler ones, had altogether cooked up potion and dyed their hair in the sun. Belle’s hair (for she’d been the only brunette to try the trick) had turned an unfortunate red shade, and gladly faded before she’d returned home after the harvest feast, and that had been the end of that adventure. But she remembered the recipe well enough. “I could make it for you.”

 

Marcas pauses. “Hair potion for a silly gaggle of girls won’t pay the cost of your father’s sleep draught, as well as the fetching of it.”

 

Belle leans across the counter, imploring, “But it’ll help. I can pay the difference.”

 

“You’d pay me coin to make potion?” he asks. When she nods, he stares at her, thinking—actually considering her proposal. Taking a rag he takes his time cleaning the spilt contents of the broken bottle off the shop floor. When finished, he returns to the counter across from Belle. Sighing, he says, “You know, there’s a place, not far from Longbourn.” He stares at her, and when the confusion on her face does not pass, he continues, “A place for those the likes of he, without their wits.” He means an asylum, Belle realizes. “You ought put him away, lass.”

 

“No. I won’t do that.”

 

Marcas shrugs, “No matter to me. Just thought you should know.” He scratches the back of his head, “Alright. Fine, I’ll take your coin and your hair dye.” Raising a finger, he adds, “But I need proof. Bring a wee bit, and we’ll test it, then go about getting you your sleep draught.”

 

She nods, beginning to list in her head the things she’ll need to make the potion. Simple enough recipe, and the apothecary would probably be able to deduce the ingredients for himself soon enough, and then she’d be out of luck once again, but this is a start. She’d need Calendula, Chamomile, Vinegar—preferably from apple cider—Saffron, Marigold, a little bit of sulfur, alum, Walnut (bark and shell) and then of course, the lemons.

 

A little smile plays at her lips without realizing, as she thinks on her mother’s lemon trees. They’d been Verna Lemon trees. Fragile things, the young ones died easily if hit by an early frost, and her mother had taken great pains to keep those she’d transplanted from Avonlea manor alive in their home garden. The Vernas, to the best of Belle’s knowledge, could only be found in the Southlands, being too fragile for these northern reaches, but surely the heartier variety found in these parts would suit for hair dye just as well.

 

“Have ye a name, stranger?”

 

Belle looks up, startled from her thoughts. “What?”

 

“Well, if we are to do business together I can’t keep calling you ‘stranger’ now, can I?”

 

She thinks for a moment, recalling her most recent talk with the blacksmith, and the name is out before she can stop herself. “Verna.”

 

Marcas frowns. “Verna. I’ll never remember that. Think I’ll keep calling you stranger. That alright by you, stranger?”

 

She shrugs, “I’ll get used to it.”

 

He nods, “Good. Off with you, now. Come back soon as the mix’s ready.”

 

“Thank you,” she says, meaning it.

 

He scoffs, shaking his head. “Thanking me for work and cost. You’re a strange one, stranger.”

 

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin walks down the main thoroughfare, relishing the manner in which the neighbors clear from his path. He knows almost all by name, at the very least by trade. Few knew his name until this year, but now they know it. They all know his name.

 

He holds his head high, thinking over the name of each as they pass, when his eyes alight upon just another face in the crowd in a plain brown homespun dress, but it’s not just another face, and there’s nothing plain about it. _Belle_.

 

This is a surprise, for he had not expected to see her in town. She had certainly not been a frequenter of the village main _before_. She’s without headscarf, hair free for the day—the sight had thrown him momentarily—and there’s something of a vague lightness to her stride different from the way she usually stalks about his home. He stares intently after her.

 

So intently that he does not see the villager in front of him, bending to pick up a dropped basket. He knocks into the poor man, who falls to the ground, rolling a bit.

 

“Watch where you’re going!” The villager stands, brushing himself off, “I’ve a mind to—“ the middle aged man realizes to whom he speaks, and sputtering out an apology runs off from a scowling Rumpelstiltskin. Frowning, the once-spinner scans the crowd, having lost sight of his maid. Finally he spots her, much farther down the way. Rumpelstiltskin wonders how she’s spent her day apart from himself and his son, why she’d wanted the day so badly in the first place.

 

So, to sate his curiosity, he does what he does best: he hides.

 

Slipping quickly off the worn-down path, he slides into the brisk shadows made from the houses, following her. There’s at least one thing to be said for his new coloring, the darkness to him certainly makes hiding easier. He catches up to the girl quickly enough, keeping to the opposite side of the lane as she. He watches her buy lemons (bruised, unripe little things) from one of the local yeomen. Hoolihan’s the name, Rumpelstiltskin thinks. She hands over a shockingly low number of coins. Odd, that.

 

Afterward, she crosses the street and walks, of all places, to the smithy. Rumpelstiltskin smirks, following her to the location, still staying out of view. He narrows his eyes as she slips between the bars of the open air shop, picking up knick-knacks he cannot make out. Off to the side of the smithy, pausing in his metal work, the eldest son of the blacksmith eyes the woman, and when she bends to look through a box of spare bits, even at a distance, Rumpelstiltskin can see that the boy ogles her backside blatantly. The boy does so frowning.

 

_Does the blacksmith’s boy court her? Is that why she’d wanted the day?_

 

The sight produces a sudden and unwelcome taste in Rumpelstiltskin’s mouth. He wonders if he should reinstate a family resemblance between the upstart and his brother. That particular thought puts his mood right.

 

The girl makes her choice—a lock of some sort he finally deduces—and instead of offering her coin to the unoccupied son, she walks to the blacksmith who works at the fire on the other side of the smithy. The old smith upon her call, sets aside his work to attend her. Rumpelstiltskin watches as the maid offers a handful of coin, and watches still as the blacksmith rebuffs her offer. It takes some convincing, but finally the girl puts her coin back in her purse and takes the lock, thanking the blacksmith many times over. Very odd, that.

 

Besides, on the whole the smith family looks not _nearly_ forlorn enough. Exceptionally odd, that. Though that family was never much on brains, the better to pound away at nigh near unmovable metal—the whole incident gives Rumpelstiltskin pause. Perhaps, he would have to think over the matter at length later that evening.

 

Perhaps, he’d need to learn more about this one, his maid.

 

He follows her on her way out of town. On the edge of the woods, she stops to talk with the chicken man, Eoghain. The man of wide-girth says something that Rumpelstiltskin does not catch, and the girl laughs the laugh she generally reserves for his Baelfire. He wonders what moved her to laugh in that way of hers that she usually metes out so sparingly—certainly not for anything he’s to say.

 

He follows her quietly trekking through the woods toward Old Saorla’s place, when she halts suddenly. “You going to follow me the whole of the way home, Rumpelstiltskin, or just until the fork in the road?”

 

* * *

Belle realizes she’s not alone as Eoghain teases her, saying he’d make the effort to drive her home in his dirty cart for the small price of a kiss, for the air takes a chilly turn and she gets that feeling to check in the window to see if she’s being watched by a certain spinner when she plays and runs about with Baelfire in the yard.

 

She knows her employer watches.

 

After bidding farewell to Eoghain, she enters the woods. Usually the walk is peaceful and soothing, but being spied upon has a way of setting her teeth on edge. This day belongs to her, so of course he’d come along and spoil it. She stops, but doesn’t bother turning around. “You going to follow me the whole of the way home, Rumpelstiltskin, or just until the fork in the road?” she calls out.

 

It’s silent for some time, and just as she begins to wonder if the feeling wasn’t simply in her over cautious head—or if the watcher is not her master at all, and if so, if she should drop basket and run—when he appears beside her. “Just until the fork.”

 

She jumps, startled, though she’d known he was there. Belle opens her mouth, but shuts it again, choosing instead to trudge on.

 

He keeps apace beside her. “And I wasn’t following you.”

 

“Then what were you doing?”

 

“Not that it’s any of your concern, but I had business in the village.” She scoffs, but doesn’t argue with him. “What’s the lock for?” he asks, pointing to the hidden lock in her apron pocket.

 

“The usual—a door,” she answers deadpan.

 

“So I gathered,” he grumbles. “Old Saorla’s place is one room, aye?”

 

“Aye.”

 

“Then that won’t work. Made for an interior door, that is,” he says. “Use it on the front door someone could lock you in.” Stupid girl, Rumpelstiltskin thinks.

 

“Could have mentioned that before I bought it,” she says without emotion.

 

“Ah, but you didn’t.” He raises a finger in her face, catching her lie through omission. “They gave it to you. Now why would they do something like that?”

 

She shrugs, “Maybe they like me.”

 

“I highly doubt that,” he says, then, surprising himself by words formed in his mind without any contribution from his better judgment or reserve, he adds, “The son certainly liked something.”

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“It’s just I doubt much smelting got done during the your visit, dearie.”

 

Belle scoffs, “Never known you to hold much vested interest in the success of the blacksmith.”

 

He chuckles at that, “True enough.”

 

They walk in silence, and he knows he should keep quiet, should go off on his own, leave her to her walk, but he asks, despite the overwhelming sense he oughtn’t, “Does he court you?”

 

“ _Court me?_ ” she asks, shocked.

 

“Aye, the son. Does he court you?”

 

“Not that it’s any of your concern,” Belle mimics, “but no, he doesn’t court me—can’t stand me. Feeling’s rather mutual, actually.”

 

“Good.” He says relieved, followed by instant disquiet, because now she’s staring at him like he’s completely out of his senses—which he may very well be. “Good thing—help being so hard to find and all, if you be courting.”

 

The two fall again into silence. Belle suddenly realizes that it is the first that they have been together alone outside of his home. The occasion did not bode well if a predictor of future dealings. They arrive at the fork in the road, dividing their two halves of the forest. Rumpelstiltskin turns and nods awkwardly at her, “I’ll just bid you good eve—“

 

“Are you ever going to stop following me?” she asks, impatiently.

 

“I already told you—I wasn’t following. Went to town for a ladder.”

 

Belle raises her eyebrows, taking in his empty hands, “Carpenter fresh out?”

 

“Went to look, thinking it over tonight for purchase on the ‘morrow,” he retorts, but damns himself instantly afterward—now he’d _have_ to return to the village tomorrow. “Luck with the lock,” he wishes with a sour tone.

 

“Good night,” Belle says, equally sharp.

 

They part ways, and Rumpelstiltskin runs the conversation over in his head again and again as he walks home. Runs over how stupid he’d sounded—Zoso agrees. Runs over how incomprehensible his motives had been.

 

He runs it over as he tries again at his books, with much the same results as earlier in the day. He runs it over as he spins at his wheel. He runs it over as Baelfire returns home and chatters about his goings-on. He runs it over as he begins to prepare their supper. He runs it over as he can’t seem to find his cast iron cooking pot.

 

The missing pot gives him pause. Odd, that. _Very_ , _exceptionally_ odd, that.

 

There of course, is only one person to blame for a missing pot, and though Rumpelstiltskin cooks well enough in a different one, and though he’s enough money and magic to buy plenty more just like it, he wonders after the absent item.

 

 _Cocette_ she’d called it once, the little iron cooking pot, commented on how her mother’d had one just the same—though not to him, never to him. The girl almost always speaks exclusively to Baelfire. Doesn’t mean he can’t hear, just because she seems to pretend so.

 

Yes, he’d need to learn more about this one, his maid.

 

* * *

Belle returns to work early as ever, pleasantly pleased with herself for the night before she, under her father’s lucid guidance, attached the lock to their front door. The installment appeared to do the job well enough, and the fact that her father sits safely tucked away inside gives her a measure of comfort she’s not felt for some time.

 

She smiles to herself, setting down the _cocette_ to begin stoking up a fire in the outdoor, stone over. After the fire takes, she picks up the pot again, to go fill it down in the river.

 

“Morning,” Rumpelstiltskin says, brightly, behind her.

 

She drops the pot, barely missing her own feet. It rolls around on the ground on its round belly between them. “Gods above,” she pants, a hand to her chest. “You scared me. You’re up early,” she says after catching her breath, surprised. Then, Belle notices his expression, wicked and gleeful. That’s never a good sign. She’s in trouble. “Can I get you anything?”

 

“Nothing more substantial than an answer.” He points to the little pot, still teetering. “Where was that last night?”

 

Seven hells. Belle realizes she’d forgotten herself and taken the pot home with her two nights previous, not remembering she would be absent and unable to return it the next morn, it being her day off from work. She feels utterly and entirely stupid. Though the stupidity pales slightly when next to her fear of her employer’s disturbing mood this morning. Rumpelstiltskin watches as she gulps, and she can see that he’s enjoying this. “At old Saorla’s place.”

 

“Oh, I know. You took it. Why?”

 

She looks at him hard and is surprised, because she thinks he truly has no idea of her reasons. “I took the leftovers from dinner for my father.” Then she adds, for its true as the rest, “and myself.”

 

The words put a crease in his brow. “Food?”

 

Belle shrugs, “I can’t very well make two dinners, now can I?”

 

“And you don’t take anything else?”

 

“No, just the dish.”

 

He narrows his eyes at her, trying to find deception, “Just this one time?”

 

Her cheeks go red, “No, sir. Every night.”

 

“You’ve never stolen anything else, truly?” he asks, scrutinizing her.

 

Belle shakes her head, “Just that.”

 

He’s silent, staring. At length he says, “You may proceed.”

 

“What?”

 

“Well, it’s just a bit of food.” He waves a dismissive hand, “I’d be a right tyrant to take injury over leftover scraps.” He snickers at his own joke, and perhaps it’s the tension, but Belle can’t help but add her own breathy laugh to it. “Right.”

 

Walking away, he tells her again, “You may continue, taking it home.”

 

“I won’t forget to leave it, before my free day.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin stops. “There’s no need—I can manage a single night without it.”

 

He leaves her, and Belle can’t help but stare after him, shocked to not only still be human, but to be thankful.

 

* * *

Later that morning, as Baelfire gets ready to leave the house, Rumpelstiltskin halts him, at the door. “I need you here today, son. The wool’s to be washed.”

 

Bae nods obediently, but as he moves to take off and hang up his cloak, a voice from the hearth calls, “I though you were going to get your new ladder today.” It’s an innocuous enough statement—were it not for Rumpelstiltskin knowing his maid better than that. Irritating mite of a girl.

 

“Oh yes,” he says. “That’s right. Thank you ever so much for reminding me, dearie.” As he prepares to leave, he catches her smiling to herself and knows that no cauldron could be so entertaining. He’d very much like to wipe that smirk off her face, but then she’d know for certain he’d been lying the day previous. Can’t have that.

 

So Rumpelstiltskin goes back to town to buy a ladder. He completes the task quickly enough. Seamus the carpenter was always an honest tradesman. The man’s clearly shaken at playing host to the new Dark One, but bears up, shows his wares, and makes the sale without incident.

 

Then, before leaving, mostly to be a bastard, but also so as to avoid the hassle of lugging a ladder under arm halfway through the forest, Rumpelstiltskin snaps a finger, vanishing the ladder to his new home. Seamus trips at the sight, falling back into a coffin, leaning against the wall along with its brothers. The fall takes down the coffin and three more behind. It’s quite comical, but the carpenter does not seem to get the joke.

 

Rumpelstiltskin leaves feeling rather self satisfied. A loud wail from down the street draws his attention. He follows the sound, coming upon a crowd, surrounding a large man, raving on unsteady feet. Rumpelstiltskin sees that the man is without his right arm, ending just above where his elbow should rightly be. His sleeve flies grotesquely with his erratic movements. They give the man a wide berth.

 

“Shite, the lunatic’s at it again.” Rumpelstiltskin sees that the owner of the voice is Marcas, the apothecary. He continues, turning to another man in the crowd, “You know her well enough—run up to the house and tell her he’s got out again.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin moves closer, but still behind the group. He sees that the apothecary addresses the fat egg seller. Eoghain shakes his head frantically. “Have one your boys go. I’ll not go up there.”

 

“Oh, let ‘im be.” A woman’s voice, and he can see that it’s Agnes, the old herb seller. “He’ll wear himself out soon enough.”

 

Marcas speaks again, “I told her to put the man away, but she’d not hear of it.”

 

“That Margie—beauty, but a funny girl, with a father that odd and out of his senses, taking work from you know who.”

 

“Margie? That’s not her name.”

 

“Blacksmith said that’s her name.”

 

“You’re drunk, old woman. Stranger told me her name’s Verna herself just yesterday.”

 

It suddenly all makes sense to Rumpelstiltskin, and he blurts out, “That’s the girl’s father?”

 

The three speakers turn to him, wide-eyed and shocked. The egg cart man ducks his head and darts away, fast as his short legs can carry him; the apothecary shakes his head after Eoghain. Finally, the hedge witch replies, taking out her pipe to do so, “Aye, your maid’s da.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin eyes the lunatic, who true enough, appeared to be wearing out, his steps more stumbling than not. “What’s wrong with him?”

 

“Spell of bad blood that is,” Agnes says, taking a few puffs.

 

The spinner and the apothecary exchange a glance at the woman’s superstitious answer, for even Rumpelstiltskin knew enough to know her answer far off the mark. The old woman had too many a wives’ tale tucked close about. “And he does this often?” he asks.

 

The old woman shrugs, but Marcas says, “From time to time.”

 

Well that explained the interior lock.

 

As they stare at the insane man, Rumpelstiltskin realizes that none of the villagers are going to lend a hand to the mad stranger. He does not realize he himself is going to either until when the lunatic stumbles, he finds himself lunging forward to catch him under his left and only arm. He sets the man upright, the crowd staring at him, shocked.

 

Addressing the crowd, he barks “Don’t you all have business to attend to?” They immediately scatter away from the glare of the Dark One.

 

Rumpelstiltskin sighs, looking up at the placid madman. He makes his choice more out of irritation with the village folk than anything else, for they’d have just let the man run about, and that sits ill with the one-time spinner. He pushes away the fact that his choice also comes out of a shared feeling of shame and hatred over being a local spectacle. He decides to take the man back home to old Saorla’s place.

 

Luckily, the witless man allows himself to be led, docile enough. They walk in silence, and Rumpelstiltskin sighs in relief when they escape the stares he feels from the village windows into the safety of the anonymous woods.

 

“I thought you’d be taller.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin looks up and notes a consciousness in the man’s eyes—so the madness came and went apparently. “I see where she gets her loose tongue,” he replies.

 

The father chuckles lightly, “What her mother always said.”

 

“Have a name, lunatic?”

 

“Aye, Maurice,” he answers. “And you’re Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One.”

 

“Yes, I am.”

 

“She said you looked strange, but—“ the man stops, tensing, however, he manages to force out the next of his words, “But any who can best an ogre can look however he pleases, I think.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin does not answer. They continue in silence. He does not let go of the man’s arm, nor does the man, Maurice, pull away. When they arrive at Old Saorla’s place, he awkwardly drops his arm.

 

At the door they find the lock now disassembled in pieces on the ground. He looks up to Maurice and his missing arm, in disbelief, “You did this?”

 

The man shrugs, “It appears so.”

 

“How?”

 

“My tool set, around here somewhere.” He enters the old hovel, side stepping bits of the lock. Maurice holds the door open, and after a few moments, Rumpelstiltskin accepts the invitation. Entering, he looks around, though there’s little to see. A few tied bundles of herbs hang from the ceiling in one corner, on the table sits two bowls and a cup, his maid’s second dress hangs on a rung near the one bed—that gives Rumpelstiltskin pause, for he’s a guess as to which of the two sleeps on the floor.

 

“She really should hide the thing, but I keep forgetting to tell her by the time she comes home.”

 

“What thing?”

 

“My tools,” Maurice has taken a seat at the table. He holds up a small leather pouch, which Rumpelstiltskin assumes, holds tools of some sort. “Just not smart, me having ‘em.”

 

“Can you put it back?” he asks.

 

The old man raises his eyebrows, “I suppose so—though I don’t remember taking it apart. You’re right though—wouldn’t want her finding it in pieces.” He looks Rumpelstiltskin in the eyes, “It would go faster with two hands.”

 

He nods at Maurice, and together, they move the two chairs in front of the door and get to work on reassembling the lock. Rumpelstiltskin holds the various pieces in place, while the old man uses his tool kit to attach them using his left hand, and though clearly not the hand of natural preference, he makes quick and relatively deft work of the lock—it is obvious he is a man used to working with his hands, Rumpelstiltskin thinks.

 

“Must have leaned out the window to do it,” Maurice says, shaking his head at himself, though his expression is a touch self-satisfied. Once finished, they return inside. Maurice seats himself again at the table. Rumpelstiltskin remains standing, eyes darting about.

 

“She doesn’t know what to make of you.” Rumpelstiltskin turns to the madman, who doesn’t sound so mad at the moment. “Won’t say much to me about it, of course, but you’re a hard one for her to read—and not many are, I’ll have you know. My girl’s a quick one. Just doesn’t know what to think.”

 

“That would make two of us.” He turns away, investigating the few personal possessions lining the hearth. Picking up a small pouch, Rumpelstiltskin asks, “So, old man, what happened to the two of you?” He opens the leather pouch, and finds a ring and necklace inside. Both are finer than he’d expected, gold, though rather small. The necklace is common enough, but there’s something strange about the ring, and he brings it closer to inspect, but as he does so, realizes the lunatic’s neglected to answer his question. “Old man?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin turns and finds Maurice slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. He walks up and waves a hand in front of the man’s face, to receive no reaction. It made sense enough, for he’d seen many a soldier return in such a state (and more than a few children). “Something rather awful apparently.”

 

Yes, yes, he’d be needing to learn more about his maid, and soon at that.  

 

He returns to the hearth, putting the jewelry back in its proper place. He picks up the other items, a worn, little prayer book, and beside that, a finely carved pipe. He picks up the pipe, clearly shaped by careful hands, and wonders if it now served as a sign of a craftsman’s impotence. Setting it down, he asks the lunatic, “Came in from the south, wasn’t it?”

 

Maurice makes no reply, and Rumpelstiltskin has seen all there is to see in Old Saorla’s hovel. He leaves, locking the man inside, and on second thought, he exerts a touch of magic to keep the lock in place.

 

* * *

The maid’s finished with his reading lesson, and putters about behind him, straightening up the living room before asking to leave for the night. Rumpelstiltskin smirks as she approaches, the _cocette_ full of the supper’s leftovers in hand.

 

“Do you need anything else?” she asks.

 

“No, you may go, _Margie_ ,” he says, finally looking up from his writing desk. She freezes, a hand on the doorknob. Slipping off his half-moon spectacles, which she’d suggested after taking note of him holding books at a distance, sometime back and he’d begrudgingly purchased and taken to wearing, he continues, “Or is Verna today?” When she does not answer, he stands, adding, “Why, pray tell, are you giving out false names?”

 

“Perhaps I liked having a laugh at the village’s expense, for we both know I think myself so high above,” she says to the door.

 

He takes her by the shoulder, forcing her to face him. “You’re lying.” He watches her closely, for he of all people, knew the power of names.

 

“I’m not. Let me go home now,” she says, frowning at him.

 

He thinks to make a quip about her idiot father, send his regards if the man’s of a mind to hear them or some such, but at the last second holds his tongue when Baelfire springs to the fore of his mind. He imagines his own son, struggling to take care of him, were he the witless idiot. Rumpelstiltskin makes a note tomorrow to tell his son that if ever he goes out of his senses to take him into a field and leave him for the crows before working himself to death for them both.

 

For Baelfire, he spares the maid a little of her dignity and pride and makes no mention of her ailing father.

 

He removes his hand from her shoulder, stepping back. “I will find out.” He opens the door and gestures for her to leave, “Run along now.” She goes into the night, leaving him questions to investigate and short a cooking pot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vernas is a type of lemon tree found in Spain
> 
> The Lemon Hairy dye recipe I found on a number medieval websites
> 
> Tansy (also called Mugwort and Bitter Buttons) and Vervaine (Verbenna) are abortifacients


	6. Chapter 6

Baelfire’s not stupid.

 

True, he might not have gone to war, like most the rest of his village friends, but he’s not stupid, not a fool in the least. Sure, he might not be able to read (well, used to not be able to read, but he’s getting better every day. Belle even said so), he might only be the son of the common, town spinner (or actually, the son of the man who used to be the common, town spinner), he might only be a boy a day and a curse away from war, but Baelfire’s not stupid, not in the least.

 

So truly, he doesn’t see why adults treat him as if he’s stupid, dumb as the village simpleton and as dim as the town madman.

 

He’s smart (he’s also brave, or at least _tries_ to be), smart enough to notice when someone’s lying (or doing a really poor job of acting. Honestly, the two ought just leave the foolery to the yearly, traveling troupe).

 

He’s smart enough to see that something’s wrong in their home. Well, to start, the porridge is damned watery (Lachlann had started saying that word after he’d come back with Papa from the battlefields. Baelfire rather likes how it sounds, at least in his head. Lachlann hadn’t been able to tell him the exact meaning, and Bae thinks it best not to ask Papa or Belle), but that isn’t the real problem. O’course, breakfast still tasted quite good. Belle had added cherries and blueberries this time, so the water didn’t _really_ bother Baelfire, it’s just that he couldn’t help but notice, is all.

 

The problem is that both of them, Papa and Belle, be acting very strangely. That couldn’t be good. Certainly not _normal,_ like they’d have him be believing.

 

Belle keeps dropping things (that’s how he’d woken up, to the sound of wooden platters hop-scotching the floor). She also keeps looking at Papa every few moments. She makes sure their hands do _not_ touch (the way the rest of the villagers have taken to doing since his father became the Dark One).

 

What’s more, his Papa looks _happy_. Not the good kind of happy, like when they’d delivered that late lamb a few weeks back that had been almost surely lost, but happy like when he’s about to win a game of Sixes and Sevens (Papa almost _always_ wins when they play Sixes and Sevens—but Bae is getting better. He’d beat him next time for certain), almost like the face Lachlann wears when he knows a secret, like the time he knew before Baelfire that they’d lowered the soldiering age again.

 

When Rumpelstiltskin passes Belle his empty bowl, the maid jumps and his papa looks much too happy.

 

Yes, this had to stop, or at least be explained properly. “Papa, Belle,” Bae begins. Both adults stop and turn to him, “What’s wrong?” he asks them.

 

“Nothing,” both answer quickly, together. The two exchange a strange look (one Bae knows they think he can’t see, but surely that makes them the simpletons when he’s sitting at the self-same table as they), before Belle scurries to the kitchen fire to wash the morning dishes.

 

“Nothing at all’s the matter, son. What would give you a strange idea like that,” Rumpelstiltskin says, rising from the table, not looking at Baelfire.

 

“You’re both acting,” he pauses, looking between the two of them, “oddly.”

 

“We are not acting oddly, Bae,” his father says, taking a seat at his desk.

 

The boy rolls his eyes. “Yes, you are,” he answers back. The two older people in the room go stiff at their different work. “Is there trouble? _Am I_ in trouble?” he asks, suddenly worried, their actions a confirmation to his questioning.

 

“No, son. Of course _you’re_ not in trouble,” Rumpelstiltskin says, impatient.

 

Baelfire looks about the room, confused. If there isn’t trouble, and he isn’t in trouble, then why are they acting so _damn_ odd?

 

Belle sighs, and pours what’s left of the morning ale into a larger jug on stone hearth mantel to be used in future mornings. “Bae, there’s nothing for you to worry over. If there’s trouble, it certainly isn’t your problem, or your fault,” she says gently.

 

He knows she’s trying to comfort him—she does that, sometimes, he’s realized—but the words don’t really work, just give him more questions.

 

She carries out a basket of clothes to be laundered, but puts a hand to his shoulder and says again, in her quiet voice, the one she uses at night, during their reading lessons (he likes that voice almost as much as the one she uses when they play together outside, sporting with his pig’s bladder ball or, on occasion, with his kite), “Sometimes people just act oddly, but that’s nothing to do with you, so when they do act funny, try not to worry your head over it, hm?”

 

Bae nods, and Belle smiles down at him, before going outside. When she’s gone, he wants to ask his papa if she’s right, that sometimes people just act in strange ways, and if it’s only adults who do that, or people his age too, but when he looks over to his father’s desk and sees Rumpelstiltskin hunched over his books, writing quickly and loud enough that Bae can hear the pen scratch at the paper all the way across the room, he decides best to leave the question to worry over and work out in his own head.

 

* * *

The morning was—as the young Master Baelfire, so aptly put it—odd.

 

To start, she lived, and Rumpelstiltskin remained quiet (smug, true, but quietly so). Belle had expected, after the previous night’s encounter, his discovery that she had been giving out false names about the village, to return in the morning to some sort of angry confrontation. Demands for an answer, demands for her head (amphibious, or otherwise), but no, there’d been none of that.

 

Odd. Very.

 

She fears his outbursts—it’s true—but _this_ , the silence and normality, unnerves her the most. Like the long, hot days before a change in the weather, Belle lies in wait all day, for the storm to hit, the first flash of lightning to sign its name across the sky, sealing the deal.

 

She does the wash, collects up the ripe kale for that night’s dinner, peals the potatoes that are about to go to sprout, prunes the rosemary and sage, tying the bundles tight together and hanging them upside down in her employer’s large, outdoor pantry (even after weeks of working for him, even in her frazzled and suspicious state, Belle still can’t get over her enjoyment of the cooking space at her disposal once again. It feels almost as good as that last large kitchen she’d been accustomed to, but she tries not to dwell too much on remembrance of places past), afterward she begins work at dislodging an invader she’d discovered the previous day, while planting a row of calendula. She hopes the plant survives the summer, for it adds so much in the way of flavor come harvest season, and what’s more she’ll be needing a constant supply, should the hair dye go as planned.

 

Rumpelstiltskin approaches when she least expects him, of course, in the late afternoon, as she fights off the invader: the beginning of a Lark’s nest. She bats at the fragile startings from under the roof eaves with her broomstick, not hearing her employer approach.

 

Belle takes notice of him as he comes around the corner of the manor, clearing his throat. “Oh,” she says, suddenly on edge and unsure—for Baelfire’s away. She doesn’t much like it when Baelfire’s away--poking at the straw clippings with the top end of the broomstick. “Hello.”

 

“Hello,” he says, evenly.

 

It’s the first two words they’ve directed at one another since the night previous, without Baelfire there to stand between them, and she wonders if this is the part where he loses his temper for good. Her nerves tighten, but still she does not stop her work—can’t, really.

 

The half-nest finally gives way, falling to the ground before her feet. Flipping the broom around, she swipes at the last few pieces of twig and leaf still pasted to the walls with dried mud. “Something you needed?”

 

“Not at the moment, no.” He steadies himself, clasping his hands at his front, taking in her movements. “I came to tell you I’ll be leaving for a time,” he replies at long last.

 

Belle sets the broom against the wall, turning to her master, surprised. That had not been the answer she’d expected. Threats, yells, a good shaking perhaps, but not his taking leave, certainly not that. “For how long?” she asks.

 

He shrugs and waves a hand dismissively, “As long as need be, I imagine. However, I’ll return before your day off, rest assured.”

 

Less than a week, in that case. She scoffs, but says nothing—for she’ll not rest, assured or otherwise, Rumpelstiltskin present or otherwise.

 

He tilts his head at her sound, “What?”

 

“Nothing,” Belle shakes her head, lightly, but without warning, he reaches a hand toward her. The sudden movement makes her flinch backward half a step. The last time he’d touched her he’d forced her away from the door, from her exit, and stood much too close to her and all her secrets.

 

At her startled jump, the spinner too flinches, pulling his hand into himself. “It’s just—“

 

“What?”

 

“You’ve got—“ he points to his own head, “a piece of straw.”

 

“Oh, right.” Belle wipes at her face and hairline, but to no success, apparently.

 

“No, back farther,” he says, but even as he speaks, Rumpelstiltskin’s already reaching forward. The maid doesn’t flinch this time (though she naturally stiffens) as he leans in, plucking the single bit of hay from her curls. “There,” he holds it up vertically, between them, for her appraisal.

 

“Thank you,” Belle says, looking away from his face to the straw, contrasting and bright against his mottled fingers.

 

“No matter, dearie. No matter.” They stay frozen for a brief moment, in that humid afternoon, waiting on a storm (for there will be one, surely--the air’s been thick and muggy for days), before he drops the strand with an overdone flick of the wrist. “Now, about the rules,” he dances the words out his mouth, taking delight in them. His voice rises a bit higher with each, “You know them already, I think: no skirting, no snooping, and no stealing,” he raises his eyebrows in question, “and keep watch over my son, keep him out of trouble. Think you can manage all that?”

 

“I can manage,” she says with a nod.

 

“Good,” he says, and for just a moment, Belle thinks he looks almost like he did that first day, when they’d met, softer or perhaps, as peaceful as he ever looks, whilst spinning at his wheel. “Wouldn’t want anything tragic happening, in my absence, now would we?”

 

Or perhaps not. She must have imagined it.

 

Suddenly, she realizes a potential problem. At Rumpelstiltskin’s reminder of her earlier theft, Belle realizes she has need to take from him again. She regrets the question, but knows she has no other option but to ask it and trespass on one who already begrudges her much—Belle does not relish the loss of pride. “There is one thing--Can I borrow something?”

 

“Borrow, mistress? What must you _borrow_ , pray?” he asks, derisive.

 

“I’ve need of one of your glass bottles, from the medicine chest.”

 

“To what end?”

 

“Why, the containing of a liquid, I’d imagine.”

 

He rolls his eyes, “You’ll not get it, if you’ll not even answer my question. It would be my bottle, after all, doing the containing.”

 

Sighing, she tells him, “I need it for some of the herbs, from the garden harvest.” All her words are true—just not the entirety of her reasons, her intentions, for Belle plans to use the glass bottle for her hair dye.

 

“Just the one?” he asks, and she nods a quick and curt reply. He thinks for a moment, “I see no reason why not. Do as you will, take one from the cabinet.” She almost smiles at the leeway, but imagines that it only goes as far as his good will, unpredictable and not far reaching on even the best of days.

 

Rumpelstiltskin turns to leave, but Belle stops him, “Is that all?”

 

His words are broken unevenly, some heavier than others and not fitted together properly, like the ruined Lark’s nest on the ground, “What else were you expecting, lass?”

 

Belle heaves a sigh, running a tired hand over her eyes and scratches without aim through her dark hair. What had she been expecting? “Nothing, I guess.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin frowns and shakes his head at the mystery that is his maid, but says no more. He turns and leaves just as awkwardly as he’d come, as he’d instructed, and as he’d answered.

 

* * *

Belle realizes that perhaps her memory is not so good as she first imagined it to be (and perhaps a touch what her father feels like when he’s half without his wits on his middling days). The problem happens that she does not remember the hair dye potion so well as she’d hoped.

 

She has all the proper ingredients, and mixed them up into a potion of sorts. She’s collected the sulfur and alum, as well as the walnut bark and shell, grinding the four into a fine and easily sifted powder. She’s juiced the lemons, straining out the skin and peelings, leaving a cloudy liquid. She’s added the tincture of calendula and chamomile, the apple vinegar (gentlest, if she recalls correctly), as well as the ground saffron and marigold blossoms. Yet, the whole of the endeavor feels off.

 

Belle growls, gently knocking her head against her work surface, for she works at the dining table, in the mid-afternoon.

 

Perhaps it’s not so much the fact that the potion does not feel proper, but the fact that her nerves do not feel proper, that she feels so very different from the little mademoiselle who learned and tried this potion so long ago--it feels different and wrong, not because of any improper measurement, but because Belle herself feels wrong and different (well, maybe not wrong, but certainly no where near that little wisp of a girl, who’d come out unscathed, excepting hair a horrid shade of red).

 

In addition, so much rides on the success of the potion that all of Belle cringes against leaving it up to chance and her own faulty memory.

 

She exhales heavily and sits up straight to take a look again at her concoction when a loud thud causes her to jump out her seat and turn swiftly, looking for any sight of Rumpelstiltskin.

 

She doesn’t see the pig’s bladder ball until she’s tripped backward over it and lies sprawled unceremoniously on the wood floor.

 

Baelfire hops into the room, through the open window and runs over to her quickly, offering a hand to help her to stand, “Belle, I’m so sorry!”

 

Morraine races in through the front door a moment later. “Are you alright, Belle? It’s all my fault. I’m not very good at kickball, but Baelfire insisted.” She says, looking sideways at the blushing (but dashing) boy, “I told you, I couldn’t play.”

 

Belle rubs at her tailbone, she’ll be bruised tomorrow for certain (perhaps even by the evening. One would think after years of sleeping on the ground that a little fall wouldn’t cause her to bruise, but bruise Belle knows she shall), however she can’t help but smile at the children. “Perhaps a gentleman would let the lady choose the game, think you not?” she teases her young master.

 

“Morraine always wants to play sword-fighting, and we played sword-fighting last time,” Baelfire complains.

 

The girl pokes him between ribs and he makes a small cry of pain (not true pain, of course, for the young boy knew not true pain, for which Belle couldn’t be happier). “You just don’t like it ‘cause I always win the fight.”

 

“It’s not fair; I didn’t go to war, so I don’t know all about sword-fighting, like you do, Morraine.”

 

Belle cringes at Baelfire’s unknown blunder, but the boy doesn’t know that war is more than sword play and toy soldiers, doesn’t know that to say it unfair that he’d missed his chance is to twist the dagger in the wound.

 

Morraine too cringes (it’s not lost on Belle that Morraine visits on days when Rumpelstiltskin is absent, but for the first, she wonders if it be not the Dark One the young girl fears, but the memories he brings).

 

The maid thinks on what to say to smooth over the moment, try to distract everyone who didn’t mean it, never meant it, but still hurt all the same, watching the younger girl twirl a lock of light hair, not looking at the boy, when a very different idea occurs to her.

 

Belle suddenly realizes how stupid she’d been. “Morraine, you’ve blonde hair!”

 

The children look up at her at the exclamation. “Yes?” the girl says, still holding her strand. “I do.”

 

“If you can keep a secret,” she says, leaning in close. “I need your help,” Belle finishes, smiling from ear to ear.

 

* * *

An hour or so later, the three stand outside in the yard, beneath the full sun.

 

At first, she’d worried about bees—for she wouldn’t put the girl in harm’s way, simply to ease her own fears, but after thinking on the matter, she doubts the stinging creatures to be much of a predicament. At least Belle hopes not, but the garden lies on the other side of the manor house, and it’s too early for the honey suckle to be in bloom, so she doesn’t have to worry overmuch about bees just yet.

 

She works on a basket she’s been weaving to keep at Old Saorla’s place. The dry straw she works with irritates her already-dry hands. Resting for a moment, Belle hopes the concoction doesn’t dry Morraine’s hair the same consistency.

 

“Morraine, let me have another look,” she calls over to the children. They play at sword-fighting, Baelfire finally giving into his friend.

 

The girl walks over, wooden sword still in hand. She kneels at Belle’s feet and bows her head, allowing Belle to run her fingers through the sticky mop. Satisfied that the girl’s hair is neither burning, nor drying out too badly, she adds a touch more of the liquid at the crown. “There, that should do it.”

 

Standing, Morraine asks, “Will it really be lighter? And shine in the sun?”

 

“I think so,” Belle tells her with a smile, “I certainly hope so.”

 

The younger child smiles back and leaves the maid, who watches as Morraine takes Baelfire unawares. She takes a swipe at his rump, the boy having turned his attention to practicing his letters in the dirt with the tip of his own sword. “Hey!” he yells, pulling up his toy sword, countering the girl’s second blow. “That’s not fair.”

 

“No fair on the battlefield, Baelfire.”

 

Belle frowns at that and watches as the girl steadily sends Bae backward, on the retreat. Morraine quickens her blows, one after another, and at last, the culmination of very poor form and footwork, the boy trips over a tree root. On all fours, he scrambles backward. With three more jabs of the sword, the girl disarms poor, embarrassed, outmatched Baelfire.

 

When she hoots, crowing her victory, Belle stands, deciding its time for teaching—for teaching them both.

 

The once-soldier, sly as ever, picks up Baelfire’s dropped sword and when Morraine twirls round, still celebrating, the maid engages, tapping the girl’s sword, with sufficient pressure to surprise her.

 

The girl’s eyes go wide, as she has to move fast, to meet Belle’s sword. Morraine goes on the retreat, though with better form than Bae.

 

“With ogres, I too learned that they know nothing of fair play,” Belle says, taking her time, going easy on the girl, but gaining steady ground, “but with men, there is honor in battle—even if the war didn’t teach that to you or I.” She picks up the pace, “There is nothing wrong with honor, in honorable victory, but,” and with her strongest blow yet, Belle forces Morraine back, into a tree, and with a two twists of the sword upon the girl’s wrist, disarms her. Moving the sword to the center of Morraine’s torso, Belle says even toned, “There’s no honor, no glory, in beating one you know you can defeat from the start.” She steps back, raising an eyebrow, and bends to pick up the girl’s sword. She hands it back, adding, “You played him false, aye?”

 

The young girl, wide-eyed, nods, accepting the wooden sword.

 

“Good, you see it.” Belle nods, helping the girl to stand. She then nods her own head toward Baelfire, “Now, help him up.”

 

Morraine hurries over and helps Bae to stand. The boy looks on, just as wide-eyed, “Belle—that was—that was—“

 

“Nothing. I knew my own skills and hers,” she says, looking at Morraine. She gives no indication that she took pleasure from down-dressing the girl—-for that would defeat the whole purpose of the little lecture-lesson. “You both could do as I did with enough practice.”

 

“Truly? Can you teach me?” Bae asks, eager as ever, as any young boy at war games.

 

“Not yet, but Morraine will teach you first,” she says, looking over at the shocked, child soldier. “Aye, you—you teach him what he did wrong, how you were able to take him on, as you did. Then, and only after, I’ll teach you both what I know.” Belle shrugs, “It’s not much, but the knowledge is yours, if you should so desire it.”

 

The two nod, and relegating Belle to the background, they set to work on Baelfire’s foot form. “You were turned wrong, Bae,” Morraine tells him, and slipping behind, takes hold of his shoulders, adjusting his posture to match his footing. Belle smiles at the blush on the boy’s cheeks. “Good, like that,” she says, “exactly, now bend your knees.”

 

* * *

“Well, stranger, I’ll be damned,” Marcas, the apothecary, says the next day, when Belle brings Morraine into his shop. “I think you did it—you turned straw into gold,” the apothecary says, examining Morraine’s hair, turning her head from side to side. He runs his fingers through it, looking closely at the girl’s scalp, “Nor did you burn it,” Leaning close, entirely business-like in manners, the man takes a quick sniff at her scalp. “Interesting,” he reaches out a hand, not looking away from the girl’s head, “Let me see what you’ve mixed up.”

 

Reluctantly, Belle pulls the glass jar from her pocket and passes it to the apothecary. Holding it up, he shakes it, swirling the fogged, faintly yellow liquid contained. Still spinning the bottle, Marcas says, “Out into the sun, with you, girl.”

 

Morraine runs out, the two adults following behind. She looks back at them expectantly.

 

“Well, go on then,” the apothecary orders, “move about. Let me see how it catches the light.”

 

The girl turns a bit for them, and true enough the hair practically glows in the sun. Marcas uncorks the bottle, but doesn’t look away from the yellow locks. He breathes in the potion with care, fanning a hand over the mouth of the jar, so as to save his nose the worst of its potency. He breathes in the scent before saying, “Lemon, I think.”

 

Well, so much for secrecy as to her ingredients. “Aye, lemons, for the most.”

 

“Hm, can’t do that in wintertime,” he says, recorking the bottle, “Unless with preserves, or perhaps a new wine—might be too harsh, though, might burn,” the last he says practically to himself, thinking it over in his own mind.

 

Morraine suddenly freezes in her forced movements, giving the apothecary a harsh look, “I don’t want burned hair.”

 

Marcas chuckles, “You needn’t worry yourself, child, we won’t be experimenting on you and your hairs, now.” He smiles, as a few of the village girls approach Morraine, to look at her yellow-ed hair. “What else did you add, stranger? There’s vinegar, if I’m not too far off the mark.”

 

Belle frowns, nodding, “Vinegar, apple vinegar, and many herbs.”

 

The man looks at her sideways, smirking, “Secretive with your potion, aye?” He shakes his head, “You women and your bloody recipes. My wife’s the same way.” Sighing, he adds, “like I told ye girl there, you need not worry over me. I’ll not be stealing your recipe, just don’t go a-selling it behind my back, aye?”

 

“I won’t,” she says immediately, immensely pleased.

 

“Alright then, now, about our deal. I’ll take more a’this,” Marcas says, raising the bottle. “Before market day next.”

 

“And you’ll get it,” she reaches for the potion, “soon as I have my sleep draught, for my father.”

 

“Now, stranger.” The apothecary raises a hand, to ease, to calm—though for Belle, it has the exact opposite effect, setting her mind racing to anger, to arguing her case and their deal.

 

“No,” she says, lunging for the bottle, but he pulls it out of reach. “You promised me.”

 

The apothecary looks about, “Aye, I did.” He pockets the bottle and turns away, walking toward the town’s main thoroughfare, though in no obvious hurry. He turns back, ‘Well, come on then, stranger.”

 

Belle follows, wondering what he’s on about, but entirely certain she’ll not bend before getting what she wants. It takes her half the thoroughfare—though she gets a fine look at the three girls from the other day in the shop admiring Morraine’s lighter hair, as well as a few other village girls, even a few of the younger wives—to realize where Marcas leads them.

 

He’s taking them to the tavern.

 

Belle pulls in a deep breathe to yell to stop, that they’d have it out here and now about their agreement, but suddenly, that wave of exhaustion hits her, the one she feels all the time, but most strongly when she takes a moment to breathe, whether hanging clothes to dry, or resting her hand from beating stains from clothes down at the river’s edge, or storing the Colcannon for supper because Rumpelstiltskin’s gone on some fool’s errand so she’s picked much too much from the garden, or raking at what’s supposed to be the garden trying to break ground that simply does not want to give way.

 

Or when she’s lost count of the sheep in the evenings, both those in Rumpelstiltskin’s pens and the ones in her own head, behind her eyes at night. Though with the last she can hardly count more than need to on a single hand before sleep takes her. She wonders briefly if they have that silly old wives’ tale in these parts, that to count one’s sheep, one’s blessings, be luck and the best way to be lulled to sleep, like the shepherd king anointed by Only Host, that the clerics and maunts taught her about all those summers ago.

 

That exhaustion hits her, and suddenly, she simply doesn’t have the energy to yell, to do anything but follow the apothecary. Belle shrugs and decides all she does have the energy for is to have a drink.

 

She follows the apothecary into the small, village tavern. Carefully stepping over the threshold, she takes stock of the place. The public house is the largest in town, with two stories, though it boasts no fine, wooden floor. The second story serves as an inn for visiting travelers—though the only visitors the village has had in some time are Belle and Maurice.

 

Dotted around the dirt floor, standing between the bar and fireplace on opposite walls, are five wood tables, along with chairs made from half-hewn logs, like the shelves in Marcas’ shop. The furnishings and floor give the place the feeling of still very much behind outside, though within.

 

The place is empty—for the time is early afternoon—with the exception of the town drunk, who sits near the fire, rocking and waving very slowly, clearly already pissed for the day. Or from the day prior, as the case may be.

 

She follows Marcas to a table near the corner, shadowed and distant from the rest of the establishment—the man wished to have words with her, apparently. Belle takes a seat, suspicious, “What’s all this about, and if you start begging off our deal, I’ll be having my potion back right now.”

 

The apothecary opens his mouth to answer, but the alewife interrupts him, coming over to take ask their fancy, “Bit early, ain’it, Marcas?”

 

“If I drank like your husband, than aye, it’d be rather early, mum,” he replies without pause. “Two mugs, whatever be least kept over-long,” he orders, waving a hand.

 

The middle-aged woman scoffs, looking affronted, but says no more, hurrying off to fetch their drinks.

 

“Now, stranger, understand, I never imagined you’d come through.” He gestures, raising his shoulders, but Belle’s unmoving and stoic expression offers no understanding, “I don’t have your sleep draught.”

 

“Then give me back the hair dye,” Belle says, extending a demanding hand.

 

“Didn’t say, I wouldn’t get it, but I just don’t have it yet.” The alewife returns and sets down two mugs, with a loud thud. She leaves without a word, not bothering to wipe up the two spills she’d carelessly created. Marcas picks up his mug, taking a large swig. “Had I known—eh,” he gripes, Belle’s face still unforgiving, “What’s done is done.” Marcas pulls a bottle from his pocket and passes it to Belle.

 

It’s not her lemon potion.

 

“What’s that?” she asks.

 

“Something for your father.” She opens her mouth to protest, but he waves her off, “For time being, you’ll have to make due with what I’ve got.”

 

Belle takes it, her mouth a hard, disgruntled line. She uncorks it, taking in the scent and the vigor. “This won’t work—it’s not strong enough, not even close.” She recorks it and holds it out to return to the apothecary.

 

“It’s all I’ve got, girl,” The man raises his hands in apathy. “You’ll have to use that ‘till the proper stuff arrives from town.”

 

Belle doesn’t nod, doesn’t give any sign that she approves, only huffs indignantly, pocketing the bottle, all the same. Of course she’d make do. She always made do.

 

She pulls out her coin purse, to reimburse him, as per their agreement, but the other holds up a hand, “You need not, mum. It’s simple stuff, as you know. We’ll settle our deal when the syrup arrives.”

 

Belle nods, surprised. “Thank you,” she says—though still stiff in tone.

 

“Least I can do,” he says, taking another drink. Belle picks up her own mug, not arguing the point.

 

* * *

When Marcas hollers out an order for a second mug, Belle refrains, for it’s been some time since she’s imbibed anything of true strength, and she already feels her head swimming. The apothecary teases her, asks if she’d rather milk to drink.

 

Belle does not find the joke amusing. She laughs all the same, but tells him most firmly (or she’d meant to tell him most firmly, but imagines she comes out vaguely decided), “I’m not a child. It’s just been a while, is all. So don’t treat me like a child!”

 

The apothecary laughs at her, and after a few moments, Belle joins him. When they finish, they’re both smiling, “See,” Marcas says, “’Tis not so bad, after all.”

 

“What’s not so bad?”

 

“Us—the village,” he says, waving to all around them. “Don’t know why you don’t like us. We might stare a wee bit, but you can hardly blame us.”

 

Belle frowns, sobering a touch, “We live far out. I work most m’time.”

 

The man shakes his head, and waving his mug at her, he says, “Excuses, and you be doin’ yourself no favors, lass, for ‘em. The distance don’t help you none.”

 

“I don’t ask no favors of you, or anyone in this place.”

 

Marcas shakes his head, “You and your master both, then. Both of you’s so damned arrogant--”

 

The words are cut off, as another man slaps him shoulder, causing him to splash his drink all over the table. Belle wipes away the few drops that managed to land on her face. “Marcas, y’old dog, already at the tavern at this time, with some young filly.” The man gestures toward to her with his also bemugged hand, but she answers, frowning, “I’m not with him, nor he with I.”

 

Marcas chuckles a strained sound, “Aye, not together.”

 

The other man doesn’t seem to catch on to their anxiety at being linked to one another, saying, “Well, well, tis all for the best, that—you can hardly keep Carlotta and your wife from each other’s throats. Don’t know how you’d manage a third.”

 

Belle chokes on the mug she’d been sipping, and coughs loudly, trying to dislodge the liquid.

 

“Sharp eye, now,” The unknown villager pats her on the back, “Can’t ‘ave you dying in a place like—“ He pulls back his hand, as if burned, when Belle looks up. “I know you. You’re the—you’re his, that is, you work for _him_.”

 

A cackling across the room turns all three heads, “Took you long enough,” the town drunk yells, swaying dangerously in his seat. “Didn’t recognize his little maid without her wee, white cap on, aye?” The three turn away, as the drunkard continues to hoot to himself.

 

“Apologies, mum. Meant no disrespect.”

 

Marcas rolls his eyes at the other man’s fear, but does nothing to refute it. “Stranger, this be Mercer Barclay.”

 

Ah, the man who traded in cloth. She’d heard Rumpelstiltskin curse him enough to recognize the name. “Well met,” she says, in a tone that suggests otherwise, “and you know who I am already.”

 

The man, Barclay, nods, then clearing his throat adds, “You wouldn’t know, mum, when, uh, he, your master that is to say, will be bringing his stock?”

 

She thinks over Rumpelstiltkin’s efforts at washing, carding and spinning the wool. It would finished soon enough, but the mercer need not know that (and the naughty idea gives Belle pause, wondering if, not Marcas, but the once-spinner was absolutely right in his appraisal of her, that she finds herself so very high above these lowly villagers, taking delight in teasing and toying with them), “I wouldn’t make to know the master’s business, sir.”

 

With that, she shrugs, finishing her mug (almost choking on the grainy, last sip—she can feel the bits of leaf and herb used to spice the ale, myrtle perhaps, stick to the roof of her mouth), she stands and fishes out ample coin to pay for her drink. Setting it on the table, she tells Marcas, “I’ll be bringing you more hair dye. Soon as I get it done.” Belle leaves without so much as a backward glance—though she does trip on the raised threshold. She still hears the town drunk’s laughter even after the tavern door shuts behind her.

 

* * *

Stumbling back, she hurries home. Belle feels as if the entire village stares.

 

_Look sharp--there goes the drunk daughter of the lunatic—Dark One’s drunken maid--perhaps she’s crazy as her old man._

 

The cool of the shaded woods provides immense relief, the swimming of her head, slowing a touch.

 

She treks through the woods at a steady pace, somewhat paranoid—she drank too much, said too much, felt too much—toward Old Saorla’s hovel of a house. Baelfire told her, on the way to the village that morn, that he was to stay with his friend Lachlann, taking supper with the family and sleeping there as well, so she’s freed from her duties for the night.

 

Unlocking the door, she hears her father call to her through the window, “Back early, Belles?”

 

She smiles at him, glad to see some measure of recognition (she only hopes he won’t note her own slightly inebriated state). She makes their dinner, telling her father of the success with the hair potion, and of the growing affinity to Morraine, what a tough little thing she’s proved to be—though Belle neglects to mention the girl’s involvement in the Ogre War. However, the omission proves to be for naught, when next he tells her, “That reminds me, a woman came to the door, today.”

 

“What?” she asks, confused.

 

“Aye, came late, and asked after you, but I said you wouldn’t be back till dark. She said she couldn’t wait that long, but that’d be coming back, some time soon.”

 

Belle sighs, apparently he’s let go his wits today, same as ever. “Oh, papa,” she says sadly, though on second thought, she wonders if its not for the best, not wanting him to remember her manner after having been to the tavern: a slight slur in her words, her steps stumbling more so than usual.

 

“Didn’t say her name, but she’d been a light haired woman too. She’ll be back, don’t know when, Belles, but soon. Soon, she’d said.”

 

Belle says nothing more, shaking her head, nor does she sit down to eat with her father, when she finishes cooking the meal—his change for the worse having caused her to lose her appetite (that or the ale, one or the other).

 

Instead, she moves her chair to sit by the window, arms resting on the sill. Before she can stop herself, she wishes for some solution, some magic and boundless answer to solve all her problems simply—remembering the lore of old, the sacred nature of stars, and the stories of the great men who tracked their movements to decipher the birth of kings and gods.

 

Then, Belle grumbles at the ridiculous idea, rubbing furiously at her face--just her face, certainly _not_ tears. She looks up into the elevated glen, where their hovel sits. Of course there’s nothing in the overgrown yard.

 

“So, you had a good time in town?” Maurice asks.

 

She turns away, smiling with half her mouth—at least he can feed himself today, she thinks. Shrugging, Belle replies, “Good as it ever is, I suppose.” She regrets the sentence, knowing she should hide her melancholy from her father, for he’s enough reasons to block out his sense of reality. She need not give him any more.

 

“Then what’s got you upset, my girl?” he asks, and the look on his face is so sincere, so very much the father she remembers, that it makes her want to confide in him, confess her fears and loneliness. She thinks on Marcas’ words, how distant she makes herself from the village folk. How the only conversations she has are ones where she already knows herself to be the brightest of the party. It’s a lonely thing, to be in this place, so isolated.

 

“I guess, it’s just that there’s no one here I can really talk to,” she admits. Belle looks up to see her invalid father’s face fall, so sad and full of regret on her behalf. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that, about you. We talk.”

 

“No, my girl,” he says, softly. “We don’t, can’t.”

 

“I’m fine,” Belle tells him, staring at the dirt floor, making patterns with the toe of her shoe, like Bae with his toy sword the day before. “Really,” she lies.

 

Nodding, though not convinced, simply pacified, Maurice turns back to his meal, “Your spinner’ll be back soon—that should keep your mind busy enough.”

 

She scoffs, thinking to herself, that yes, her father was most certainly out of his mind today.

 

* * *

Three days, and still no master returned.

 

It’s the longest Rumpelstiltskin has been away, and Baelfire grows impatient, or at the least, restless. He follows close at Belle’s heel, all day, as she moves about her work, planting spring onions left by Morraine, as well as Coltsfoot, the coughaid she’d found growing nearby. Follows as she dusts the shelves, and follows as she washes and hangs to dry the bed linens.

 

Still, what the boy finally resorts to, to remedy his agitated state, catches Belle completely off guard.

 

She’s gone home for the night. She makes herself busy, reheating that night’s meal, and plucking down a few leaves from one of the bundles tied together, hanging in the corner of Old Saorla’s hovel, she crumbles them in her palm, stirring them into the borrowed _cocette_. Her father seems well enough this evening, but Belle knows not to be fooled by appearances. Since his mention of some anonymous woman coming to their door last night, she’s been hesitant in trusting the logic of his mind.

 

“Hello there,” Maurice says out of the blue, the man’s voice rising a notch, “what have we here? A stowaway?”

 

Oh the gods—here he went again. She grumbles, “Papa, now there’s no one—“

 

“Lachlann _was_ right,” Baelfire says, “you’re not mad all the time.”

 

Belle turns, shocked to find the boy peeking a head through the open window, brown eyes even wider than usual. “Baelfire!”

 

“You must be Belle’s strange, little fellow I’ve heard so much about,” the old inventor says, jovial. “I’m quite mad, son, but no, not all the time,” Maurice chuckles at the boy in the window.

 

The child smiles, but turns sheepish, noticing Belle’s frown. “Good eve, Belle.”

 

“Bae, what are you doing here?” she asks, an exasperated edge to her voice.

 

“Don’t be daft, my girl, he came for a look—isn’t that right, son. Nothing wrong with that,” he says, turning to his daughter. “That’s curiosity, that is. Inquisitive, a healthy thing in a boy, that is.” Turning back to Baelfire, Maurice says, “Well, come in, son, don’t by shy.”

 

He hops in the through the window, not bothering with the door. “I just came to—“

 

“You came to gawk,” Belle says, quiet but sharp.

 

“Oh, don’t mind her, son, she doesn’t much like people staring at me.” Maurice waggles his stump of an arm, in a joking manner.

 

The two laugh, but Belle, on the other hand, finds nothing amusing in the gesture. “Bae, I need some help, will you go with me to fetch some water from the river?” she asks.

 

“But, you’ve got some right there,” Bae points to the pot next to the _cocette,_ half full of boiled water.

 

Maurice waves Belle off with his one remaining arm, “Oh my boy, it’s naught to do with the water. She means to tell you not to ask why I’ve only one arm, and the like.”

 

She scowls at her father, and picking up the pot angrily, water splashing out (though landing mostly on her own skirt, as luck would have it), she says, “Fine, I’ll get the water myself.”

 

Angry at being foiled, as well as being followed, Belle leaves the two men, stomping down to the river’s edge. When she arrives, she sets the pot down, sliding down against a tree trunk, to sit on the damp ground. The voices follow her from the house, even down here. She cannot make out their words, but their tone is pleasant, happy, even.

 

It’s too much.

 

Belle pounds her head against the tree, feeling the rough, uneven surface of the bark, gently at first, and then harder, faster. She throws her head back, punishing herself for the mess she’s made, for the fact that she can’t make those happy sounds as easily as the other two, that she has to retreat, always retreat ( _run away_ , is more like it).

 

She pounds her head against the tree, until, when the wind picks up, she feels something wet at the back of head go cool with the breeze. Belle reaches a hand back, touches the moisture, and when she brings her hand to her face, even in the dusky light, she can tell that it’s a small amount of blood coating her fingers.

 

With her clean hand (only outwardly, of course, a superficial façade of cleanliness), she picks up the pot and takes it to the river’s edge, where she submerges it, along with her hands, all the way to her forearms. She takes her time with the filling, simply letting the current run over the pot, as well as her arms, lets it run her over.

 

Briefly, she splashes water on her face and the back of her head—couldn’t very well return to the house with blood in her hair, now could she. Finally composed, Belle trudges up the hill. Once close enough, the voices become discernable. They’re laughing, she realizes. As she approaches, Belle peers into their hovel. The two sit at the table, Maurice explaining to Baelfire the different tools in his kit and their uses, her father sounding so alive, so much like the man she used to know.

 

Her heart fills to the brim, and Belle wonders if she might not die for the feeling of it.

 

“—And you’re in earnest? The world’s truly made up of little, invisible bits?” Baelfire asks the inventor.

 

“Truly, my boy, truly,” Maurice answers, wryly.

 

The boy still looks skeptical, so Belle adds, confirming, as she walks through the door, “He speaks the truth, young sir.”

 

Baelfire looks up, “Belle, you’re back! Your papa wants to show me how to work the door lock, but only if you say it’s alright. It is alright, isn’t it?”

 

“Of course, it’s alright,” she says. “It’s fine.”

 

* * *

The boy shares their dinner (his second, but he’s a growing adolescent and is largely hungry the entirety of the his waking hours). He makes for very pleasant company, and after the meal, as Belle cleans, Baelfire explores their home—

 

Belle stills instantly, realizing that for the first time, she’s thought of Old Saorla’s place as _home_.

 

“Belle, what’s this?” Baelfire asks, holding up a small, tattered book, pulling her from her shock.

 

She looks to the mantle, to find the boy holding up the only book still left in her possession, “Oh, that’s my mother’s scripture book.”

 

“Never seen one of those.” Without fear, the boy opens it, scanning the pages.

 

“My boy, Belles here, tells me you’ve been learning your letters and books. Is that so?” Maurice asks, from where he sits at the table.

 

“Aye, sir,” Bae says, sparing a quick glance to his teacher, “she teaches me and my father.”

 

“Well, then, read us a bit, won’t you?” He tells the boy, “you see, my girl here won’t read to me anymore, and I’m a bit slow in the going, my eyes not what they used to be.”

 

Baelfire looks at Belle, who nods to him, “Give it a try, Bae, I’ll help you with the difficult words.”

 

Hesitant (but brave, Belle thinks, very brave), he opens the book, perhaps a quarter of the way, and clearing his throat reads out, “ _And then, Only Host’s an-an—_ “

 

“Sound it out, Bae.”

 

“’… anointed?”

 

Belle smiles, “aye, very good.”

 

“ _And then, Only host’s anointed king went up upon the sah—_ “

 

The maid walks over, wiping her hands on her apron, unsure of the word without looking. She peers over Baelfire’s shoulder, at the sentence, “Ah, it’s ‘sacred’, Bae.”

 

“ _… the sacred mount to con-consult and cast lots with the—_ “

 

Belle cuts him off, prompting, “that’s ‘Oracle’, one who can tell the future.”

 

“Like a fortune teller? They’ve got those in the traveling troupe every year.”

 

“A little like that.” She nods, “go on, you’re doing well.”

 

“ _… to consult and cast lots with the Oracle of those parts_.”

 

Chuckling, Maurice says, “I remember this one. King doesn’t listen. Ends up losing his heir and crown for it.”

 

Baelfire furrows his brow. He turns from Maurice, to the maid, pointing in the small book, and asks, “Belle, what do the little numbers mean?”

 

“That’s how prayer books are divided up into smaller parts. The numbers help those who memorize it, or study it, to remember, more like a song, I suppose.”

 

“Who would need to do that?” the boy asks.

 

“Oh, many people, the clerics and maunts mostly. Friars too, I suppose. Though, they all study it in the old tongue. My mother’s book in all likelihood would be frowned at, being written in the common language.”

 

Maurice nods, laughing again, “You’ve no idea the pains I went to, getting her that little thing.”

 

Now, emboldened, the boy flips through the aged pages, opening to the middle section. Belle recognizes the verse, as he begins to read slowly.

 

“ _Sacred bond and kiss, to your petal lips, ve—ve—_ “

 

She takes the book from his hands, “Perhaps a different section, young sir.”

 

Bae looks up confused, “But why, and how do I say that word, and the one after?”

 

“It’s ’veiled hellebore’, Bae.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

Maurice chuckles in the background, as Belle explains (but only partially of course, for the verse holds a double meaning), “it’s a kind of flower. Lenten rose, you might know it as, though we called it True Love’s Kiss, in my place.”

 

The older man says, with a smirk, “You’re beet red as your mother, rest her. Now teasing her, that was some amusement.”

 

Baelfire looks between the two adults confused, “What’s wrong with that part of the book?”

 

Belle sighs, frowning at her ornery father, explaining, “There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s simply, perhaps, a bit old for you. It’s a love letter, you see, from a king to his betrothed.”

 

“A letter?”

 

“Aye son, a very open letter, my girl means to say, that leaves little to the imagination.” Maurice says, winking, “though poetic, I’d say, though I’m hardly a judge on that.”

 

“ _Papa_ ,” Belle implores. Turning to Bae she says, “Just avoid that section, aye?”

 

The boy nods and takes the book back. She watches him, but the honest boy, flips through the front and the back, avoiding the suggestive and innuendo-filled love song.

 

“What was your mother’s name,” Bae asks.

 

Belle opens her mouth, but before she can answer, Maurice says, “Marie. Her name was Marie.”

 

* * *

Marie lived a provincial life, lacking very little, having been born into a lesser ranked noble family. She was the youngest of the daughters, but she was also the prettiest. It was always assumed that she would marry up into the higher ranks of Avonlea nobility—what’s more the Duke of Avonlea and the greater Southlands had a son a bit older, and who could know, perhaps a match was not so far out the range of possibility for young Marie.

 

However, the range of possibility, which Marie always took for granted as only what was presented directly before her—she’d grow to be a logical woman, that much was obvious, but never an imaginative one—expanded beyond all preconceived ideas and parental aspirations, the summer she turned thirteen.

 

She meets the tinkerman’s apprentice that summer.

 

They meet only in passing. Her father went to the summer fair to look at those new bows the tinkerman boasted, with metal string and better range, without loss of accuracy. He takes his youngest along as a whim, being young and pretty, her parents can’t help but favor her.

 

The young apprentice catches her eye, and somehow the two end up in the back of the caravan full of the tinkerman’s wares, where he shows her a spring-loaded box he works on to tell the time, even on cloudy days.

 

“… and it’s better than those old, leaky water clocks any day. Damned things break faster than you can fill ‘em—“

 

“ _Maurice, the hell are you off to_?” the tinkerman yells, and the two part, but all year, in the back of her mind, at balls and jousts, even in the chapel and in confession with her prayer beads, Marie, wonders if she’ll see him, the tinkerman’s apprentice ever again.

 

* * *

They meet the next year, and the year after that, and of course the third.

 

“You’re crazy, Maurice, absolutely stark-raving mad,” Marie twitters, giggling like wind chimes (he could make those—could make _her_ those). “That’s not possible, and you’re just having a laugh over my stupidity—‘tis not kind, not kind at’all.”

 

The apprentice had just explained the tiny, invisible pieces that made up their world, or tried to, at least, with terms the young noblewoman could understand. He’d taken his lunch bread, broken it and used the scattered crumbs as an object lesson (what was one lunch, when he could sacrifice it to hold her attention for that single hour?).

 

“It’s true as that little book in your pocket, I swear it,” the handsome young man says—he’s two years older, and oblivious to the stares of the other young women in town, only seeing this pious, out of reach, angel. He leans closer, and with a wink, adds, “maybe even truer.”

 

The young girl’s mouth drops, and she swats him on the arm, the rosary about her neck swaying in a highly distracting way—really, all her talk of modesty, and then she wears those tightly bound dresses. “Maurice, you can’t speak like that.”

 

He chuckles, “Only to you, lady Marie, only to you.” They smile at one another, blind to the rest of the world that is the busy city of Avonlea.

 

So blind, they do not see Maurice’s guild master, the tinkerman, until he’s completely upon them. The older merchant grasps the young lad by the ear, yanking him fiercely. “I didn’t contract you to flirt with nobility, boy, back to work.”

 

* * *

The next year, Maurice alone returns, explaining to Marie that his master had died winter last, and shockingly enough, left his caravan and all his fortune, little that it was, to his young apprentice.

 

“And all these years, I thought he hated me,” he tells Marie, as he digs through piles of metal and wooden bits in the back of the caravan. Finally, he pulls out a copper plate and kettle. He returns to the front and passes it to the castle cook, “Here you are—needn’t no fire, simply leave the plate in the sun, uncovered and it’ll boil without the need to be bothering at the hearth.”

 

The cook pays for the novelty, still looking skeptical, but curious, all the same. After the large man waddles off, Marie asks, “And he left you all these things?” For his wares looked different this year, more intricate, not the simple bits and leftovers she’d grown accustomed to seeing.

 

Maurice shakes his head, “No, I made these. No one knows, but it’s easy once you get the idea, to make life simpler, free up your time with just some oil and a few springs,” he implores passionately. Suddenly, a line appears between the man’s brow (for truth, he did become a man during the past year, beard and all, Marie thinks). Maurice leans toward her, brushing her hair away from her shoulder. “How the hell did you get that?” he asks, pointing to a large maroon scar marring her white neck.

 

“Oh, that?” she says, embarrassed. She moves a hand to cover it, but Maurice takes her by the wrist, removing it so he can continue examining the scar, “Burning myself, it was quite silly actually,” she says, taking back her wrist.

 

The inventor—for he’s no tinerkman, that’s for certain—turns away, rummaging through his piles. He pulls a jar from the lot, and says, “How? Leaning over the kitchen fire?”

 

Still shy, still red in the cheeks, she says, “I was, trying to curl my hair--it’s rather straight, you see.”

 

Maurice blinks. True, his girl usually wore her hair braided or down straight (or, his least favorite, in those prim and proper netted buns). The man’s aware of the ways women try to make themselves more beautiful, sells a few in fact, with their powders and their oils, and the long metal rods for their locks. He realizes instantly that she was curling her hair for him, making herself more beautiful for him. “Well,” he says, passing her the jar, “those irons can be dangerous. Be more careful next time?” he tells her, not as a question, but as a request.

 

Marie nods, and opening the jar asks, “What’s this?”

 

“It’s to help with the burn. It’s new, something I’ve been a-working on. Helps with the scarring too—“

 

“ _Inventor,_ ” the shout breaks their moment, and the two turn to find themselves face to face with the captain of the Duke’s guard. “Are you the inventor?” the tall, well-built man asks, looking at Maurice (but also sparing a glance in Marie’s direction—for she is a beautiful thing, curled hair or no).

 

“Aye, that I am, sir.”

 

“Then, I’ve been ordered to escort you for your audience with the Duke. Says you’ve some soldiers’ inventions to show him.”

 

“Oh, yes,” Maurice says, expression brightening. “That I have. Just, give me a minute to gather some example ware.” He hurries about the caravan, closing and locking up his shop for the day, as well as packing up a bag to take to the castle proper. In the bustle, Marie attempts to pay him for the salve, but he absolutely will not let her.

 

* * *

The rest of the summer, they do not meet, nor does Maurice open his shop again.

 

The Duke keeps him busy, with projects to do with the defense of the duchy. Maurice oversees the creation of a series of spring-loaded bows that shoot three times as far, and knives with a minute spring that flips the blade out its scabbard, easily hidden in clothing folds and pockets, for fighting hand-to-hand (though it crosses the inventor’s quick mind more than once that they could also be used for easy assassinations).

 

His largest project, by far, is the complete remodeling of the castle portcullis.

 

He remakes the thing with, of course, springs, but also levers and pullies. When it’s finished, the gate requires significantly less manpower to open, but also locks into place when shut. The Duke pays Maurice in coin, but also in praise, and suddenly, the inventor’s name is known to everyone of age in Avonlea.

 

There is one, however, who does not take as much pleasure in his stardom, and that is Marie, for she misses him something terrible, and its worse than in the winters, for she does not have her daydreams of summertime to keep her warm, instead she only has thoughts of how he’s forgotten her (she uses his burn salve religiously, and true to his word, the scar fades before summer’s end).

 

On the final day, before most merchants not local to Avonlea pack up to return to their homes till summer next, Marie goes to Maurice’s usual market spot.

 

She stops in her tracks, hands clasped as if in prayer about her necklace, for there he is. The man moves at lightning pace, packing away his little wagon of wares. Marie cannot move, her breath held fast in her chest, but luckily the man turns to pick up a bag on the ground, and spots her, instantly.

 

Maurice drops the bag, staring, and Marie finds the courage to smile at him, so small, she wonders if he even sees it.

 

The inventor grins back, and suddenly he’s moving. He hops into the caravan and she hears him banging about, in his usual, harried manner. She takes tiny steps forward, each a little less difficult than the one before.

 

When she arrives at the caravan, Maurice emerges from the wagon. For all the frantic movement, he looks terrified. He forces a hand forward, “Here. For you.” Marie takes the gift, and examines it. At long last, she realizes it to be a curling iron—but unlike any one she has ever seen.

 

The iron is not iron, not any kind of metal at all.

 

“I had it made from sketches, I thought over what would heat, but not burn so bad as all that iron.’ He scratches the back of his head self-conscious, “didn’t do it all myself, couldn’t really, had the potter make the cylinder, out of ceramic—that is, ceramic, it’s a bit like bricks, you could say—“

 

Marie smiles and imagines she might just cry for all his babbling, “I love it.” She speaks true, loving the token that speaks of affection, deeper and more honest than any rhyming sonnet written by a paid court scribe, or promises of jousts and tournaments won in her honor.

 

 _This_ \--this strange man’s even stranger gift speaks of the heart.

 

“Now, I know it’s not much, but when I leave, I’ll be finishing a house, and though it’d be less than you’re used to, accustomed to, I could make you all manner of things to make your life easy—all of it, any of it, it’s yours, if y’ll’ve me,” he mumbles the last and looking at the ground between them adds, “I understand, o’course, if you don’t want me, that is, if you don’t want to marry me--”

 

“Of course, I’ll marry you, you crazy man.” She says, quietly, and then louder adding, “Of course, I’ll marry you, Maurice.”

 

* * *

At the end of summer next, they marry at the harvest feast—though her parents are not completely pleased with the prospect, the inventor had made a name for himself, and that was justification enough for them—and a child is born in the spring ( _early_ spring).

 

She returns to Maurice’s little house—their home—bearing her trousseau, her carved rosary with the inlaid porcelain, and three Verna lemon trees to be planted in their yard.

 

When they arrive, Marie would be lying to say she wasn’t a little surprised at how small the place was, but the concern recedes when Maurice shows her the small chapel shrine, to her namesake, Saint Marie, the Queen Mother, he built for her prayers in the back, behind their home, with stone steps leading from the backdoor, so her feet would not get wet when it rained.

 

They name their child Belle, for like their life, she is beautiful.

 

* * *

After Belle’s birth, for the first three years, Marie tries for convention in the raising of her daughter (and after consulting with many a midwife, learns that a daughter is all there is to be), but things pass from parent to child, no matter if they are desire or not, and it soon becomes clear that Belle, like both mother and father, is not destined for convention.

 

The girl works in her father’s workroom, fetching him tools and mixing the oils, exchanging the embroidered skirts for a boy’s breeches. She swims, and runs, and climbs trees (though not the lemon trees, sensitive and delicate as they are—as Belle is _not_ ). There is one concession to Belle’s unconventional raising: Marie insists on sending Belle to Avonlea in the summers to be taught the feminine arts and court etiquette amongst her cousins (though her distant family’s charity only extends so far, and Belle works between lessons with the scullery maids in the laundry basements to earn her keep).

 

It is a provincial life, providing all that she needs, but some day she wonders at her choice, then she thinks on that little copper pot, that boils all on its own, and of her curling iron, and of their well that didn’t need to be turned by hand, and those hands that made all these gifts and more, her hus’ hands that are put to use in so many better ways with all their time to spare, thanks to his inventions.

 

Yes, Marie, wonders at her choice, but always concludes that she made the right one. The right one for her, at least.

 

But for her daughter Belle, now that is another matter entirely.

 

All winter, every winter, Marie works on a proper gown for her daughter, in which she can attend the Harvest feast, as any noble girl, with the hopes her daughter can catch a more conventional husband—she is beautiful, after all, with her fair skin and dark hair, but her father’s curls and his blue, blue eyes. Perhaps, Marie thinks, her daughter can fulfill that role and marry up. The Duke’s son now had a son of his own, who could know, perhaps a match wasn’t so very far out of the range of possibility.

 

The years are hard, and they are not rich, but they love, and that is more than enough for Marie.

 

* * *

When Belle comes home the summer of her twentieth year, bringing word of the Ogre War, Maurice thinks nothing of it, but Marie, on the other hand, worries. She recalls the summer they wed--or was it the summer before? Been so long, she can’t quite be sure--and remembers the reason her parents acquiesced to her strange love affair, to the world (or at least, world, so far as Avonlea and the greater Southlands was concerned) famous inventor, known for his defense equipment, his soldiers’ dressings.

 

She begins to pray in the little chapel to her namesake, Saint Marie, not once, but twice a day, kneeling at the small pulpit (built by careful, lover’s hands, for his tiny wife), runs the prayer beads through her hands, rubbed smooth with oil from her fingers, from years upon years of use. She whispers the words, over and over: _Holy Mother, Full of Grace, Curse-breaker, Full of Grace._

 

Marie prays even when it rains, makes the walk to the chapel, hopping from stone to stone, her feet never touching mud, more than a few stones needing to be unearthed and reset over the two decades or so that they’ve been wed. She prays even as the seasons change, when snow falls and covers the ground.

 

She prays even when she catches cold and ought not leave her bed—as Belle their beauty says, but she’s just a child and cannot know the extent of a worried wife’s devotion and piety (and faith, too).

 

All the same—and she’s still sick with that petty cold—the letter comes.

 

It bears the seal of the Duke of Avonlea and the greater Southlands, bids the world famous inventory come to court, and build great machines for the facing of the inhuman foe. The family knows there is no other answer but to agree to the commission.

 

Marie dies two weeks after of pneumonia, and it is a struggle to bury her (Belle rides to three different farms, in three different directions to call on boys and old men left behind to help break the ground, cold and solid as ice) behind the little chapel to Saint Marie, her namesake.

 

The next day, Maurice and Belle lock up the house and ride for Avonlea to invent and build machines of war.

 

* * *

“It’s getting late,” Maurice says, in a rare moment of self containment (for he loves the company, Belle can plainly see, but knows that he’s libel to lose himself, with the topic as well as the late hour). “You’d best be getting to bed, Master Baelfire.” Belle sighs in relief at her father’s use of the teasing title. At the mention of her mother’s name and prayer book, she’d worried that he’d disappear inside his head, inside his despair.

 

The inventor notes his daughter’s thoughtful expression—for he’s no fool, though he’s not had his dead wife’s book learning, “Don’t look at me like that, Belles.” He motions out into the night, with his remaining hand, “Walk the boy back, I’ll be alright.”

 

She thinks for a moment, but seeing no other solution, but to leave the man alone, she nods, “You heard him. Come on, _Master_ Bae.” They leave, but not before Maurice extracts a promise from Baelfire to call again soon; the boy needs little convincing, having taken a shine to the old inventor.

 

The two walk back through the forest slowly, quietly—though Belle slower, and Baelfire quieter.

 

They are more than half way back, before she realizes (and now who’s the one lost in one’s own head, hm?) that her charge is awfully quiet, too quiet, taking in shallow, jagged breaths. “Bae?” she asks, stopping. She puts a hand to his shoulder, but the boy pulls back, “What’s the matter, Bae?”

 

“Belle—“ and the little boy’s voice cracks, “I’m—I’m sorry. I did come to gawk. I did.” He begins to cry in earnest, and the maid moves to pull him close, to comfort him, but he pulls back again, “I didn’t mean to be cruel. Honest, I didn’t.”

 

Finally, the child allows himself to be pulled into an embrace. “It’s alright, Bae.”

 

“I didn’t like it, when people stared at papa either—I should know better. I’m sorry,” he confesses, words muffled in the hold.

 

“Shh, shh,” Belle soothes, patting his back, between his shoulder blades, slow and gentle, like a mother, like _her_ mother. “It’s alright. I forgive you, and I’m sorry I yelled at you over it.”

 

She releases him, and he wipes at his face, sniffling, “It’s okay, Belle, I deserved it.”

 

Putting a hand to the boy’s cheek, she says, “Hush now. All’s well.” She ruffles his hair before adding, “We need not worry over today, for today will worry more that enough over itself.” She loosely quotes her mother’s book of verse, though the boy knows this not, and Belle decides that he doesn’t particularly need to know, neither.

 

They continue in their walk, Baelfire composing himself, Belle wondering after this friend of his, Lachlann, and if perhaps she should keep an eye on that one. The son of the once-lame spinner breaks the night, speaking out, “Papa didn’t like it when they laughed at him—“ the boy pauses before adding, in a darker tone, “and I didn’t like it, either.”

 

Unguarded and hidden in the dark, with this fellow child, it’s easier, to reply honestly—Belle answers Baelfire’s sentiment in kind, “I don’t like people laughing at my papa too. Don’t like them laughing at me.”

 

The boy nods, understanding, and the two children walk home, parting with all between them forgiven, their separate fathers in the fore of their separate (but oh so similar) thoughts.

 

* * *

 

The next day, she’s on all fours, scrubbing the floor, skirt knotted on both sides, at her knees, and sleeves rolled to her elbows. She’s sure she must look ridiculous, and so that’s when Rumpelstiltskin chooses to make his entrance.

 

Of course, he’d return when it’s easiest to make her look the fool.

 

She hears the door creak, the thud of boots bigger than Bae’s on the wood floor, feels the change in the air. “Back already?” she asks, sarcastic, “We were beginning to wonder if you’d gone for good.”

 

“Oh no, not gone for good, just held up,” Rumpelstiltskin says, voice light, “by town gossip.”

 

The maid doesn’t look up from her scrubbing. “Is that so?”

 

“Oh yes, heard the most interesting things in town,” the Dark One says, taking his time with the words. “Belle,” he says, “Belle of the Southlands.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Belle,” he says, “Belle of the Southlands.”

 

The maid’s hands freeze, fingers curling around the boar’s bristle brush she’d been using to scrub the wood floor, and in that silent moment, the room shrinks and grows hot instantaneously. Belle had yet to break a sweat from her efforts at scrubbing his fine floors, but she can feel the heat, just bellow her skin, in her veins and her blood, still dry and hot, not yet water dripping out her skin. It will change at any moment, and her head throbs with it, the dry sweat and pounding blood.

 

“Quite a name you made for yourself, in so short a time, hm?” He strides over, hands in the heavy pockets of his traveling cloak. His boots clank, and vaguely she thinks to scowl at him for tracking dirt where she’s already cleaned. Silly thought, that. “How many died?” he asks.

 

“I don’t know,” Belle says, quietly, hands still frozen, and she can feel the wiry hairs from the wild pig, a few bent and poking out at odd angles from the base of the scrubbing brush.

 

“Scores?”

 

“Scores,” she shrugs, “hundreds? I know not.”

 

He bends at the waist and examines her, when Belle neither accepts his eye, nor moves at all, he straightens, “Shame what happens when war machines go awry. Killed the world famous inventor and his daughter they say,” he walks slowly to his writing desk and leans against it, “strange then that I should find myself employing one such who fits that very description.” Rumpelstiltskin makes a tsk-ing noise, shaking his head, “So, out with it, what have you to say for yourself? Just exactly how were you so fortunate as to escape that untimely end?”

 

“It was my fault,” she says, and there’s a release to it—someone finally knowing. “I was a coward,” Belle says, staring straight ahead. “I was a coward, and I ran.”

 

* * *

In her youth, Belle had watched the clerics and maunts transcribe their holy scriptures, one harvest’s time, long, long ago. Her father had been sent a summons to service the support beams of a monastery deep in the mountains, leagues below the ground, below even where the dwarves dwelt. She’d been lucky enough to travel with him, after much begging and pleading with her mother.

 

She’d watched them write, the saintly scribes, not sentence by sentence, nor word by word, but rather by the letter. Letter by single letter, to ensure that the pages remained exactly the same, the meaning never changing, transcending time out of mind and followers innumerable.

 

That’s how she speaks now: the words pouring out, without emotion, without emphasis, simply words, meticulous, completely focused and without pause. Like the novitiate authors: _look up, note the letter, dip the quill, write it, check it, pause, breath, do it all again._

_Look, dip, write, check. Again. And again._

_And again._

_And again._

_And again._

 

She tells him of her father’s machine, (their machine, really), their magnificent machine. She tells him of when her father had still been the world famous inventor, and she, his assistant.

 

She tells him of the arrival of the Duke of the Frontlands, come to help the Duke of the Southlands with his war campaign, and more so, interested in their magnificent and silent machine of war—what was to be the undoing of the ogres.

 

She tells him of the malfunction, the explosion in their workshop, down in the gutted wine cellars below the castle walls, how it blew a large chunk from the castle wall. She tells him of the Dukes’ anger at the mishap and of their loss of faith in her father’s abilities.

 

That’s when the Duke of the Frontlands—Hordor was his name, Belle recalls—though up a solution to the problem. She tells him of the Duke’s plan.

 

They could never place so much stock in the machine, when they had so much to risk in the war, when the thing had already backfired once. Maurice had assured both Dukes that machine would be sound, would be the factor that would turn the tide of the war to their favor in fact.

 

She tells him what Hordor says next. Then, the Duke of the Frontlands asked how sure.

 

The inventor said he’d bet his life on it.

 

The Duke had smirked: “Your life perhaps,” he turned to Belle and added, “but what of your daughters?”

 

She tells him of the Duke’s plan, to send the daughter of the world famous inventor to assemble and test the first device, while the father stayed behind to finish the rest. She would see how well it performed in actual battle, how well it ran when what the inventor loved most lay on the line.

 

She tells him how she left (though not who she rode behind, and of the heartfelt farewell Gaston bid her when he helped her down from his mount), how she came to the battlefields, how she watched on the transplanted crow’s nest serving as the runner’s outcropping. She tells him how she’d climbed up and watched as ogres worked to acquire a taste for table manners—that they did not simply kill their captives, rather they feasted on them, made an art of ripping limb from torso, sucking down blood and entrails, cooking over open flame the more tender cuts.

 

She tells him then of her fear: Belle did not want to die this slow, torturous death.

 

She tells him how she built. Slow going work, every day, she assembled the machine, the silent din of metal buffeted by strong arms (sometimes arms that frightened her).

 

It took a month.

 

She tells him of the water, how they added brimstone to fill the soldier’s stomachs, to better keep down the rations. She tells him that she was spared these actions, that she had access to a supply of clean water.

 

“How?” Rumpelstiltskin asks, breaking her from her trance.

 

_Look, dip—freeze._

_Drip--Page ruined. Start over_.

 

Belle looks up sharply at the Dark One, “A deal.” She scoffs, “not that I understood it at the time.”

 

_Fresh parchment. Write, dip, check. Again. And again._

 

_And again._

 

(And again, and again, and again. Every night. Again. Except that one night, when they’d brought the amputee to the doctor’s tent in the middle of the night, a cloth in the injured man’s mouth to stop the screams— _mustn’t wake the ogres_ —and he’d scurried from bed. As a last thought, he turned back, “Well don’t just lie there. Get up and help me.” She’d held the man down, as the blood dripped from where his leg used to be, bite marks the size of her fist visible, as visible as the red on white bone. She’d held him until he’d gone unconscious from the pain of the hot metal: the cauterizing. Afterward, exhausted, the man sleeping fitfully on the cot on the ground, she’d made to leave, but the doctor had grabbed her wrist with the same disinterest at which he’d remembered to beckon her help. He’d led her unfighting to bed, and they’d slept in a sweaty, dirty heap, the sleep of the dead—the only night she ever passed in his bed where they _only_ slept.

 

The doctor had known the horrors of the slow death as the ogres pick you apart, looking for the juiciest morsels. A deal he’d offered—a death, at the time of Belle’s choosing, by her own hand—and a deal she’d taken.

 

She tells none of this).

 

 _And again_.

 

She tells him of the testing on her war machine, how it had worked, silent and far-reaching. How they had sent word, with the aide-de-camp (the self same boy she’d seen when she’d neglected to knock at the entrance to the captain’s tent and the doctor had laughed at her naïveté, oh, how he had laughed at her mistake) back to Avonlea, to the Dukes and her father.

 

She tells him how another month or two passed and the wagons finally arrived, with her father’s armada of finished war machines, twins to hers, already assembled for the most. It had been a cavalry of sorts, and it had only taken a day to line them all up, on the front lines, quiet as nursemaids, and Belle, Belle exhausted from the assembly, exhausted from sleepless nights, had near on feinted in the evening. Her father, when the finishing touches were almost ready, sent her to sleep in the wee hours. “Dawn’ll be here soon, my girl, and then we’ll have a real show. Can’t have you falling asleep for that.”

 

She’d agreed, because he was her father, and she could be a child again, in a place where she’d been full grown, a woman and a spent one at that, so she slept the sleep of the dead, alone in her own tent, and woken to the dawn, bright and cold. After stretching, she’d rolled over, grabbed the ladle from her water bucket, from the doctor’s clean supply, just another part of their dealings, put it to her parched lips—

 

She remembered.

 

She tells him, how she’d dropped the ladle, (tripped over it) as she’d raced from the tent, making noise, and not caring, _not caring at all_ , that sound carried far to sensitive ogre’s ears.

 

She tells him how she’d seen her father, balancing the ladder the aide-de-camp stood upon, pouring water into the radiator, and from there, still far out and running, she could see her father smiling. She’d screamed to stop, for all of the them to stop pouring the bad water, the brimstone-tainted water, into the twins, triplets, veritable multitude of machines.

 

Only they can’t hear her. Only the ogres can hear her.

 

Her father had raised his arm, when he finally had noticed her, to wave, and then the explosions began.

 

All along and down the line. Fire Chaos, blood. Destruction.

 

She tells him of the aide-de-camp, head smashed upon a rock, beside her father’s arm. She tells him of her father’s delirium, and of the cauterizing, deep in the woods, of how she’d stolen goods in the midst of a camp in disarray, fighting ogres from miles and miles around, while fighting each other over whether to bury or simply burn the dead.

 

All so loud, none could hear the silent disappearance of the Inventor and his daughter.

 

 _Check_. _Close book._

 

* * *

“Every machine?” he asks, finally breaking the silence that has fallen between them since the woman had finished her tale. She nods once. He makes a shocked noise in the back of his throat and her head shoots toward him. He opens his mouth to explain himself, but closes it again—there’s nothing to be said.

 

“All of them—and their men with them.” She looks him straight in the eye for the next part, and does not stop until she’s spoken her peace, “Because of that, they began to use children—I wouldn’t learn that for months, but it happened. Because of me.”

 

They stare, and then, in a flurry of movement, she tosses the brush into the bucket of soapy water. It splashes out onto the floor. “So what are you going to do to me?” Belle asks, and her face appears like stone, but like those he took shelter beneath while on the run, supple and beautiful, despite their lack of warmth. He doesn’t answer her right away, and she rubs her fingers against one another. They’ve wrinkled from the water.

 

“Do?” Rumpelstiltskin replies, all sarcasm and mock surprise. “Why I’ll keep you well away from explosives, for one.”

 

She turns to look at him, out from under her little bonnet that he’d magic-ed for her that first day she began serving him—that seems so long ago, and longer ago than the war (for that seemed forever near, only a day, an hour, a moment past), and the girl looks completely confused, not understanding him in the least, “I don’t understand. Aren’t you angry?”

 

He shrugs, “A bit, but then,” he adds lightly, “I’m always a bit angry.”

 

“You’re letting me stay,” Belle says, finally comprehending his meaning, “but why?”

 

He shakes his head at her and says in exasperation, “It’s a done deal, dearie, you killed children, but not mine, and those that did die were hardly your fault at that,” he says, and it’s true enough. “You work hard, and I’m in need, beside, now that I know your secret, it seems you rather owe me a debt to the keeping of it. A wise thing, that, to have one’s hired help indebted—makes disloyalty, shall we say, out of the question,” the last he says with a certain flair of theatricality, and it’s that last that reassures her she’s in no danger today, from the wrath of the Dark One.

 

It shocks her, this sudden kindness.

 

His kindness always shocks her, for it comes completely out of nowhere, unwarranted, and often unearned—there’s an absolution to it, a catharsis, and what’s more, from the least likely to parcel it out.

 

“How did you know?” she asks, rubbing each sore wrist, from the afternoon’s scrubbing, and before that a morning’s work in the garden (her mind’s in a tangle, and she knows not what to do _but_ rub her wrists).

 

“You came in from the south,” He says, as he slips off his traveling cloak, hangs it on the wall, and takes a seat, to pull off his boots, one by one. “Wasn’t too hard to follow your past stops. You’re new at running,” the spinner looks up at his maid as he explains, “but for me, well, it’s been my life’s work, you could say.” He watches her, watching him, before finally biting out, “Don’t just sit there, haven’t you work to do?”

 

She gets to her feet, wiping her pruny hands on her apron. “The laundry needs doing,” she says, and walking over toward the door, she pauses near him. “You wear that the whole time?” she asks, inclining her head toward his garments.

 

Rumpelstiltskin gives her a frown, and exhaling a half-hearted growl, waves her off, “You can see to it next time.”

 

Belle nods and with the laundry basket hitched up on her hip, leaves for the river, grabbing his traveling cloak as she goes.

 

In her absence, the old spinner sits at his desk for a few moments before the restlessness begins. He thinks over the story, nothing shocking—nothing he’d not already known.

 

It had been simple enough to follow her trail backward, find those who recalled the strange description of a man missing an arm and out of his wits, accompanied by his beautiful daughter with the sad, striking eyes. He’d followed the trail to the edges of the Southlands, and by that time he’d heard the tale of the two lost souls: Belle and Maurice of the Southlands.

 

Angry, she’d asked.

 

Aye, at first—livid, in fact, but the more he learned, the more her past became clear, the more he realized she’d not been at fault for the deaths of all those children who came after, who almost included his own Baelfire, but rather, she’d been the first. The very first child whose innocence and blood came to rest at Hodor’s feet.

 

If only he could bring the man back to kill him a second time.

 

While he changes out of his dusty travel clothes, he thinks over the other reason for his journey, his other search for answers. That, unfortunately (but not unexpectedly) had revealed no new information. Sitting down again, he wonders what he’ll do about that—perhaps to the waters of the west? Yes, that would be his next destination.

 

Rumpelstiltskin opens one of his worn maps, and marks the dead ends and circles his new targets. As he looks at the map, however, his eyes stray to the south, and he wonders just where exactly the battle had been waged. He finds Avonlea (not easy, considering the large amount of cities and towns with names that begin with “A” but his reading’s steadily improving and he finally spots it). He wonders, scanning the areas surrounding the city kingdom, where about her little farm lay.

 

Drumming his fingers absently, he decides that she’d been right, his clothes did need a wash after all, and best not left until the day next, very unwise that. He hastily rolls up the scroll and gathering up the clothing, he heads down to the river.

 

However, when Rumpelstiltstkin arrives at the usual spot in the river, where they wash, he finds no one. Frowning, he assumes she’s gone downstream, for up, he’d likely have seen her while walking—though as to why, he can hardly imagine.

 

He follows the hillside which borders the river, taking his time, trying to think of the best way to give over the clothes and ask for her to point out her home on the map without either appearing to be a request, when something catches his eye.

 

He looks up and freezes instantly, where he stands.

 

A line of clean linens separates them, she and the river still a good distance off, but even where he stands—stock still—he can see that Belle of the Southlands, his little maid, stands in the river completely naked as the day she was born.

 

Rumpelstiltskin watches as she bathes, washing her face, legs and arms. He watches—can hardly look away—as she stretches her arms and back. She must be sore, he thinks, from the scrubbing.

 

The warm wind blows, every so often catching one of the cloths on the line, hiding her again from his view. The wind is warm now, and he realizes it’s well into summer now. Belle’s been with them a season.

 

Despite the line of clothing, he sees all of her: her back, her breasts, her flat stomach, her calves that he truly does enjoy watching when she climbs and descends the ladder rungs, her knees, thighs, torso, and neck, and when she bends at the waist to wash her hair, he’s struck by the appeal to it, as he always is, when he sees her without her usual cap.

 

Once finished, she sits on the river’s edge. Her hair curls as it begins to dry, and still he watches her, appraises her, like he would a batch of sheep’s wool to be woven, or a strip of Bae’s thread, now that he’s begun to learn the art of the spinning wheel.

 

Her skin hangs off her bones, he notes, in a tired manner, tired as the rest of her, he imagines, as tired as her keen mind (for he’s learned that much about her in their time together and from his investigations—she’s no fool, his maid). Her shoulder bone juts out at a sharp angle, and that’s it, Rumpelstiltskin realizes: she’s sharp and angular, skinny to the point of unhealthy (a point he well-knew, though only he, never Milha, and certainly never Baelfire).

 

In that moment, watching her in the sun, feet in the water, naked and glorious, he wants to feed her, to fill her.

 

He wants to fill her skin, fill it with fat, fill it with life, the life that positively flowed from her (flowed out her so fast she hardly knew it, too busy feeling death and debt that remained behind in her loose skin), and of course, she’s scarred (he wants to run his fingers over them, but imagines she’d not appreciate the calluses).

 

She’s scars all over her beautiful body—aye, she’s beautiful, there’s no denying—and though it’s the first he’s seen her (not that he hasn’t wondered. He is a man after all), he knows it’s a sight he’ll not soon forget.

 

Yes, he wants to fill her, though he still looks for another, going on search after search since killing Zoso and taking the dagger.

 

He’ll not stop searching, chasing after a boat, a bastard, and a lost dream. It’s a coward’s penance, Rumpelstiltskin knows, a coward’s effort, but oh, here and now, how he wants to fill her. He wants to fill her with himself, and she fill the spaces of him, so that perhaps together, two cowards could discover enough forgotten courage between them, and he wonders if—

 

Belle stands suddenly, wiping her tired eyes, and begins to turn round, to reach for her own garments lying on the riverfront. Rumpelstiltskin vanishes dirty clothes and all (and that night avoids her eye entirely).

 

* * *

In the days that follow her employer’s return, Belle breathes a little easier for the confession, surprisingly enough. There’s a release to it, his knowing, and of course, there’s the fact that he didn’t turn her into a snail.

 

She even goes so far as to wonder if she need fear Rumpelstiltskin quite so much as before, and why, when searching for the lighter, summer quilts, she stumbles upon the wedding wreath at the bottom of a trunk, she does not hesitate to pull it out to take a better look.

 

Belle pulls the ring of dried flowers from the bottom of the trunk, and though she handles them with care, a few petals still fall off. The festive symbol brings a smile to her face, as she recalls playing as a child with her mother’s own floral crown, whilst pairing the over-large wreath with a tablecloth to completely her bridal play-set. The remembrance warms her, and without thought, removes her white cap, setting it on the ground. She walks to the hearth and pulls from the shelves a metal tray that she knows will do well enough for a looking glass.

 

Gripping the circlet daintily with one hand, she uses the other to unwind the ribbons wrapped around it, allowing them to dangle free, as they’re meant to do. After balancing the tray upright, leaning back against the fireplace, she slips on the headpiece, laying it over her loose curls.

 

Belle smiles at her blurry reflection and toys with the ribbon ends. They’re frayed and yellowed with age, but still a pretty token, all the same. She takes another look before slipping the wedding wreath it off. It’s one of her regrets, not having taken her mother’s wreath with her when she and Papa left for Avonlea. Although, Belle imagines it highly unlike that she will ever be in need of such a crown. She turns to return the heirloom to it’s hiding place, when the spinner walks inside with another box of wool to be spun.

 

He gives her a cursory glance, before walking past her to his spinning wheel, but turns back when he realizes what she holds. He stops immediately, box still in his arms, “Where did you get that?”

 

“I—“ she points to the trunk, “I found it, in the trunk.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark One, looks from the item in her hands to the mantle, where the tray still stands upright, and the man’s uneducated, but he’s no fool, he realizes what she’s done. He frowns and continues to his spinning wheel, “Having a bit of fun, were we?”

 

“I meant no harm,” she says.

 

He scoffs, “Of course you didn’t.”

 

Belle looks at him, back facing her, already begun at his task, spinning away. The words slip out, before she can stop them, “Your wife’s?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin’s foot stops, as does the wheel. After a moment, he continues, “Aye, my wife’s.”

 

“And Bae’s mother?”

 

“Yes, that as well.”

 

“What—what happened to her?”

 

The man cringes, for the girl just kept prodding and pushing, be it teeth or townsfolk turned mollusk; she never stopped, his Belle.

 

He crosses his arms over his chest, letting go his thread for the moment, “I—“ he begins, but then, turns a little in his chair, “I lost her, nothing more to tell, really.”

 

She watches the spinner speak about the unknown woman. He plays with the skin on his elbows as he does so, without realizing, and Belle thinks it a very human action.

 

He sighs, slumping down in his chair, “She was never really mine.”

 

Belle frowns at that. “Did you love her?” she asks on impulse, upon hearing the sadness in his voice.

 

Rumpelstiltskin stares at her, stricken, and she wants to apologize, to take it back, because of the look on his face, but she doesn’t (because speaking the truth is healing in an excruciating way—like the salt rubs the maunts used to make and sell to support their monastery). Just when she thinks he won’t answer her, he speaks up, “I—I thought I did, but now, I don’t know. Hardly know what love is.”

 

Belle nods, because likewise, she wonders what the word means, wonders if she’s even capable of it.

 

“And what of your betrothed?”

 

“My what?”

 

He rolls his eyes at her, at the idea that the bit of Avonlea gossip would have escaped him, “Southland’s son? You think me ignorant of your little romance with the Duke’s son?”

 

Belle blushes, embarrassed to have her youthful dalliance with Gaston not only known to her employer, but clearly embellished, “We were never betrothed.”

 

“Close enough,” he brushes her off. “That’s beside the point. Did you love him?”

 

After a moment’s decision, Belle speaks to him with an honesty transparency, “Women always love the first to notice them--haven’t men learned that by now?”

 

“They do?”

 

“Yes, in a simple way,” She nods, “Gaston imagined he loved me, I suppose, but then I was pretty enough, and we were both young--it’s easy to imagine yourself in love when it’s like that, between children.”

 

You still are, Rumpelstiltskin thinks, smith’s son can hardly keep his eyes in his head—

 

 _And if he doesn’t we can always teach him_ , Zoso adds.

 

“But that’s not really love,” Belle says, drawing him back outside himself.

 

“It’s not?”

 

“No,” she shakes her head, “Love needs,” she looks to the ceilings, looking for the right word for what she means to say, “ _layers_ , some kind of connection, something small even, like, oh I don’t know, how you take your tea, for example—just something to stave off the monotony--the pain--of it all, of life, of age, I guess.”

 

“And you didn’t have that, with the Duke’s on?”

 

She shakes her head, “No, we didn’t have that.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin nods, and wonders what they were like together, her and this boy—Gaston.

 

“What about you? Did you have that with her,” she asks, quiet, “your wife?”

 

“No,” he scoffs, sadly, “no there was nothing like that, no mystery. She was wild and I was her only option.

 

“But you have Bae.”

 

“Aye,” he agrees, “I’ve got Bae.” The somber conversation ends, and he turns back to his spinning and forgetting.

 

“Oh that reminds me: Mercer Barclay wants to know when you’ll be bringing your thread to him.”

 

Rumpelstitlskin sneers, “I bet he does.” The spinner sighs, “I’ve half a mind to sell to one outside the village, but I’ll decide soon enough. The cheat’ll have to wait until then.”

 

Yes, Rumpelstiltskin thought, he planned to sell to one much closer to the sea, this year.

 

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin married.

 

It’s a strange and funny thought, one Belle can’t quite wrap her mind around. The notion of course had occurred to her before—he’d have to of been married in the past, to have a son. She’d always known this as fact, but when faced with the very real memory of a wife lost, well, it’s something she’s a bit of trouble digesting.

 

As she waits Eoghain to return, so she can buy eggs, the last thing she needs from market, she leans against the wooden beams of his chicken coop, wondering what the woman had been like, Baelfire’s mother, this wife of Rumpelstitlskin’s.

 

“Good morrow, stranger,” a voice calls.

 

Belle jumps, surprised by the sound, and turns. She shakes her head, but replies, “Well met, Marcas.”

 

The apothecary chuckles at her, “Startled you, did I?”

 

“’Tis no matter.”

 

A large smile fills the man’s face and he comes to lean against the wooden fence beside her, “There now, sounding a bit more like us, everyday now, aye?”

 

Belle frowns and realizes the slip of the tongue: she’d answered him with a touch of the local accent.

 

“Oh, no need to look so put out,” he pats her on the back a bit rough, “’tis not so bad, as all that.”

 

She sighs and turns back to the watching Eoghain’s chickens, preferring not to answer with her true feelings on the subject of the locals and their accent.

 

“How’s your father, girl?”

 

She shrugs, “Well enough. Do you have my medicine yet?”

 

Marcas shakes his head, “Soon, I promise it.”

 

She frowns and opens her mouth to tell him how long his promises would last, when a commotion in the coop draws her eye. Belle turns and spots one of the cocks fighting another. They peck and holler, until Marcas waves a hand at them. “Shoo—g’on you.”

 

They two separate, but Belle keeps watching the instigator. Though clearly the smaller of the two, no one would ever guess from watching the way the rooster strutted about. He liked everyone to know who held the power in the chicken pen, clearly.

 

Lightly, she scoffs at the show off.

 

“What?” the apothecary asks.

 

“See that small one, who likes to throw his weight around?” She points out the rooster in question.

 

He nods, “Aye, likes ‘em to know he can defend himself.”

 

“Remind you of anyone?”

 

The man laughs, “Aye, I suppose the resemblance be a little striking, but if we are talking about resemblance,” he pauses and points to a loan hen, near to the bushes in the center of the pen, “then I can’t help but notice her.”

 

Belle frowns, rolling her eyes.

 

The man scowls at her, “Now, no need to be like that. Hear me out,” he says pointing back to the rooster, “look, he keeps watching her, that one.”

 

“I don’t think so,” she says, and truly, the two stand not even remotely close.

 

“Aye, but watch, he circles her, keeping his distance, true, but he likes that one.”

 

She takes a moment, watches the chickens (wishes Eoghain would arrive), but unfortunately notes some truth to the shopkeeper’s words. “Why, you think?”

 

“Because he can’t unsettle her’s what I think,” he answers, not bothering to look at Belle, focused on the coop, “it peaks his interest.”

 

* * *

Belle returns to Old Saorla’s place before the noon hour. She’s made a habit of trying to be home as much as possible, for she finds it best not to leave her father too long unattended.

 

She smiles at the fine weather, and as she reaches their little hovel, she thinks it highly unlikely that Rumpelstiltskin followed her today, and she’s glad of it (can hardly imagine if he had heard what Marcas had said about the chickens). Truly having a day to of her own gives her a comfort that pleases her, and yet, she wonders why the change—if anything, the discovery of her involvement with the Ogre Wars should have added to his suspicions of her, not mitigated it.

 

She shrugs off the curiosity, for she was not like to find answers, and instead, unlocks the door.

 

“Belles,” her father hollers out the window.

 

She jumps, clutching her chest, “Papa? You startled me. What is it?”

 

“Hurry, Belles, we’ve company.”

 

“Oh papa,” she says, not bothering to hide the pitiful tone to her voice. Sighing she opens the door.

 

“Apologies for calling on you unannounced,” the voice calls from one of the two worn-down chairs.

 

Belle’s eyes widen as she takes in the woman sitting in their home. “You’re real,” she says, shocked that, true to his words days prior, the blonde woman has come to call again, as her crazed father had said. She sputters out, “I’m sorry, but I thought—“

 

“That I wasn’t coming back?” she asks, side-stepping Belle’s reference to her father’s bouts with insanity, and the inventor’s daughter suddenly recognizes her.

 

“I know you,” Belle says, squinting at the older, middle-aged woman—though still very pretty, with her yellow curls bound up off her neck, and a not-entirely tattered shawl about her shoulders.

 

“Indeed,” the woman says with a smirk, “We’ve met before, at the old witch’s place.”

 

Belle’s mouth opens with the realization. Yes, she knew this woman: Carlotta, the prostitute from Hangman’s Tree crossing. They’d met sometime back at Agnes’ hut. Belle had gone there in search of medicine for her father. The other woman had been buying the local Bitter Buttons.

 

“Carlotta,” Belle says, entering the place fully. Sellslove the old hedge witch had called her, but Belle knew all too well just how bitter those transactions could be.

 

The woman smiles with full lips—painted a light red. “You remember after all,” the whore says, pleased, “and you’re Belle—or do you prefer Belles?” the last she asks in a condescending tone.

 

The daughter frowns, as she makes her way to the fireplace and tells her, “I’d prefer to know why you’re here.”

 

“Oh, the little maid’s a suspicious one, but I wonder,” the woman stands and walks over to Belle, examining her, as she arranges what she’s brought back from the market. She does her best to withstand the scrutiny, and luckily drops nothing. “Is that the fault of your employer, or where you like this before?” She watches the younger girl for a few beats, but then turns on her heel, “Not that it’s anything to me. You’ll forgive the questions, but we don’t get many strangers in this town, so when we do it’s gossip fodder for some time.”

 

The lovely woman shrugs, and her shawl sways in such a way that Belle’s eyes are drawn to her chest. She wonders if it’s a practiced movement, “Anyway, I’ve heard tell about the town that you make and sell hair dye. Is that true?”

 

Belle blinks, “Yes, but—well, I make it, but--”

 

“Hand it over to Marcas to sell. Yes, I know.”

 

Mercer Barclay’s comments in the tavern return to Belle—the apothecary and the prostitute are lovers. “Then what do you want with me, when you could go to Marcas?”

 

The woman scoffs, “Oh, dear, now don’t tell me you’re completely ignorant to the _wiles of women_ —what would my lover think if he knew I bought hair dye to cover my gray hairs?” Carlotta exclaims, gesturing with an elegant (though dirty) hand to the roots of her hair. “Rather take away some of the romance, don’t you think?”

 

The woman wishes to remain young in the eyes of her lover. The idea makes sense enough to Belle, but that still leaves a problem, “But I—“ and her eyes dart to her father, who sits, tinkering with his tool set, trying (and failing) to look uninterested in the women’s chatter, “I gave my word I wouldn’t sell it myself.”

 

The woman makes a mocking gasp and then throws her hands toward the younger girl, “Well I’m not like to tell, if you’re not, and besides what harm will it do to sell to little old me? None.” The woman strides over to Belle, “And I’ll pay you twice what I’d have paid Marcas.”

 

The amount seizes Belle’s interest—a heavy weight in her apron pocket it would be. Carlotta smiles, “You like the sound of that, methinks.” The woman wraps the shawl more tightly about her, and walks to the door. “Think on it, child,” she says, “I must be on my way—noon traffic, you must understand.” She gestures for Belle to follow her outside. Once a fair distance from the house, she continues, “You know Hangman’s Tree, girl?”

 

She nods, “Aye, I know it.”

 

“That’s my place, have you leave to come after dark.”

 

Belle’s eyes narrow, “Yes, why?”

 

“After supper and before the wee hours, ‘tis when I’m least called upon. You’d do well to get your pay then, after I’ve made another day’s wages.” Her eyes flit back to the house, “I thought your father’d not like the idea of his little Belles out and about with the highwaymen and whores.”

 

Carlotta smirks, but Belle makes no expression to the milk name, nor the coarse speech, “I’ll come to you then, before the midnight hour.”

 

“Good,” the woman says with a nod, “I must be off—business never sleeps, as they say.” She disappears into the woods, leaving Belle alone.

 

* * *

Belle waits on pins and needles, more anxious than she’s been in days—since the Dark One’s discovery of her past—for night to fall and her father to retire to bed. Finally, after eating, Maurice lies down to bed, and his daughter slips quietly from the hut, locking the door behind her.

 

She navigates the forest with an ease she’d never have imagined when first she came to the village. She arrives at Hangman’s Tree sooner than she’d expected—so it comes as no surprise, when she hears _noises of the night_ , that Carlotta still hosts a costumer. Doing her best to stay silent, Belle hides a good distance off, behind a tree to wait.

 

It’s not the first that she’s walked in on an intimate couple. She remembers back, to the Captain and the young aide-de-camp.

 

She’d worried that night that she’d be late to the strategy meeting, held in the captain’s tent. It’s her first night in the army camp, and she’s nervous enough, without making a name for herself as tardy or incompetent. When she arrives, she opens the tent flap without thought, and the sight shocks her.

 

On the cot, facing away from the door, the Captain kneels, holding the hips of the aide-de-camp, their fast movements and breathy sounds making it obvious that she’s walked in on a moment of passion.

 

Blushing beat red and feeling the pulse on her brow and in her neck she stumbles out of the tent, panting. She stalks away, away from the human sounds—the most human of sounds that so strangely sound so much more like animals—when a rowdy laughter startles her for the second time.

 

Belle jumps, her head turning to find the source. She spots three men sitting around a nearby campfire. She recognizes one as the Lieutenant who had escorted her and the machine pieces from Avonlea to the battlefront, as well as the Field Marshal, whom she had met upon her arrival. The third man, his face appears familiar, but she knows him not. He’s handsome, older than she, but less than most of those in High Command. His features are light, and his hair, she thinks a dirty sort of yellow, like a washcloth in need of changing—it’s not an ugly color, but that’s simply what it looks like. With half a smile, he says to her, “We generally wait for the Captain to call for us.”

 

This brings a fresh round of chuckles, and she walks closer to the light. “He said to be at the meeting at nightfall,” she speaks evenly, as she’d been told earlier that day.

 

The man leans up toward her, “Yes, and as you see, he’s a bit preoccupied at the moment.” Looking to the other two men, “Or perhaps he’s something of a voyeur.” They chuckle loudly, and the unknown man takes in Belle’s drawn line of a mouth. He then chuckles out, “So, you’re an innocent after all.”

 

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

 

The man shrugs, “One hears thing, and beside Southland’s son looked rather devastated.” He makes a pained expression, and Belle realizes he’s mocking her.

 

“We were friends, as children,” she explains, her tone cold.

 

“Of course, your pardon for any offense, madam.” He gives her a half bow, but the joking smile betrays him.

 

“Pay him no mind,” the Lieutenant says, waving the other man off, “The only thing faster than the doctor’s hand is his mouth.”

 

The men all take delight in that, and the Field Marshall raises his ale mug to clank it against the Lieutenant’s, “Too true, too true.”

 

The camp doctor, she remembers then. She’d been told that there was only one, in the whole of the camp, and apparently this was he. Still, physician of no, the quip sits ill with her. Belle doesn’t like to be at the wrong end of a joke. It reminded her too much of her noble cousins and too many summers of teasing.

 

She opens her mouth to ask him just exactly why he thinks himself free to such allowances, but at that moment the tent flap swings open and the aide-de-camp, a young boy, scrambles out and into the dark, followed by the captain, looking cold as ever, who calls to them. “The devil are you fools waiting on? Rather be up the whole of the night talking strategy or do you want to sleep? Make haste, now.”

 

The three men amble to their feet and walk to the tent, Belle along with them, but a hand on her elbow stops her. The man leans close, so no other hears, “Truly, I was only speaking in jest. I meant no harm.”

 

She looks from his face to his hand at her arm. He doesn’t remove it, though the hold is feather-light, “We have so little these days, you see, to smile about,” he tells her and the boyish nature of the expression softens her, if only a small measure.

 

“It’s fine.”

 

The smile deepens, “Good.” He releases her and together they walk to the tent. He holds the flap back for her, and allows her to enter first.

 

* * *

She waits, awkwardly forcing herself to stand still. She’d not move out of discomfort and anxiety, only to have the clandestine couple hear.

 

After a few moments more, she hears the rummaging of clothing being righted, and coins changing hands (though no kiss farewell). She waits, peeking out at the crossroads from her hiding place, and at last sees a lone man emerge. He looks from side to side, in a lazy way and begins the slow walk back to the village. Once he’s out of sight, Belle wonders best how to make her presence known.

 

“You’re early,” the unseen Carlotta calls.

 

She frowns, and stepping into the open of the street, she walks closer to Hangman’s Tree. “Not on purpose.”

 

The woman steps farther into the street, running a hand through her tousled (graying) curls. Belle notes the darkness that collects on her fingertips and realizes her nails are painted now, like the traders from the distant shores, the ones she met when she’d traveled around the summer fairs with her father. “’Tis no matter to me,” the woman smirks, “Did you learn something?”

 

Belle frowns, “I need no lessons in love-making.”

 

“Is that so,” Carlotta says, but then turns serious. She turns back to the brush, “Come away from the road, lest someone take the wrong idea.”

 

As she and Belle tramp through the underbrush, the sellslove says, “So, you serve the old spinner.” It’s no question.

 

“Aye, I do.”

 

“And?”

 

“And what?”

 

“’And what,’” the woman says with a scoff, “I mean to ask, do you lie with him?”

 

“No,” she says, firmly, “no, I’m only his maid.”

 

“Only?” the woman laughs, “oh, you are young, aren’t you.”

 

Belle bristles at the woman speaking down to her, “Speak plainly, madam.”

 

Carlotta chuckles, “Just listen to that high speech.” The woman’s lip curls and tilting her head, she observes in an objective way, “You’re young and pretty, very.” She leans against a tree, looking no more pressured to explain herself to Belle than before, “I rather thought I might have a bit of competition in you.”

 

“Me?”

 

“Aye, you—young, pretty and poor,” she ticks off on her painted fingers. “All the key ingredients to turn a woman into a whore, but you’ve your spinner, now, I suppose. My costumers are safe, for a few more years yet.”

 

“What’s this to do with hair potion?” she asks, in a rude tone.

 

Carlotta chuckles and it’s a sweet sound, in the dark night below Hangman’s Tree, “Nothing, but in my line of work, I hear things.” She pauses and appraises Belle, both their heads uncovered, “You say you only serve your spinner, but I know better. You play with his son; he watches over your lunatic father.”

 

“There’s misdeed in that?” Belle counters.

 

“No, ‘course not, but child, well it looks to me that you play house.”

 

Her eyes go wide, “I what?”

 

“Play house,” Carlotta twitters, “pretend you’re wife and mother.”

 

Belle moves to shake her head, but stops herself, seeing that perhaps the older woman makes a point. “I’m just his maid.”

 

“I know, but keep _playing_ and eventually, mark my words, I’ll be not the only one to come to the same ideas.”

 

“The village?”

 

She shrugs, “the village, but more importantly your spinner.” Carlotta looks thoughtful for a moment, and Belle wonders what she mulls over, in her head, “You know, he’ll ask to lie with you. Only a matter of time, really.” She pauses, and then adds, “they all do.”

 

Belle weighs her words, weighs her memories, and she of all people knows the truth to the statement: _they all do_. “Yes, I know.”

 

“How will you answer?”

 

Belle scoffs, “No idea.”

 

“You’d best decide, and soon at that.” Carlotta smiles, perhaps the most unguarded, the most kind, she’s been all evening, “Would you want to?”

 

It’s a question without malice, but it still catches Belle off guard. The girl’s mouth gapes open, and after a moment, the other shrugs her shoulders, “Tell me or not, I don’t care.”

 

“I—I might.” Belle speaks out, “We talk, at times, and I forget the rest of it.”

 

“The rest?”

 

She frowns, “He’s petty and short-tempered. Powers gone straight to his head, but,” Belle sighs, “he’s not a bad man.” Belle knows bad men and Rumpelstiltskin’s not one of them.

 

The older woman toys with her bosom, and says, almost to herself, “Aye, true enough even if he did kill Hordor and all his men besides.”

“ _He’s_ the bad man,” she says, remembering the sheer happiness he felt upon condemning a widower’s only child to potentially die on the battlefield—the first of many, as it were.

 

“Oh, child, I know,” Carlotta assures, but then notes the question in Belle’s expression and shakes her head, “No, not like that. ‘Twas my luck that I’m a bit old for his tastes.” Carlotta then asks, “Where you there the day the spinner brought the children back?”

 

The stranger shakes her head, “No, I wasn’t.”

 

“Well, it was a sight, I’ll give you that.”

 

The maid nods, and after a moment of listening to the wind, the prostitute says, “I’ve a man coming soon. Let’s be done.”

 

She and Belle trade coin for color, and quickly enough she’s on her way through the wood, but like the new weight in her pocket, her thoughts weigh heavy on her tired feet. The sellslove’s put thoughts in her head, and fears, what’s more. She walks home wondering about desires and decisions (and if she even has either of those anymore).

 

* * *

Sometimes, the girl arrives before he awakens. For instance, on the nights where he’s sat at his desk working away, more than once burning through an entire candle, on those morrows, he lays in bed as she moves about in his house, on his floors. She tries to be quiet (doesn’t always succeed—he knows her to be rather clumsy from time to time).

 

This morning, she’s quiet.

 

She’s earlier than usual, for very little light streams in through the windows. He lies there, in his bed, separated from her sight by a closed curtain, made from a thick burgundy fabric. When closed, it leaves only room for his bed, the trunk at the footboard, and the shelves to its side.

 

Rumpelstiltskin imagines what she does, his little maid, as she skitters about, pots clanking lightly, the fire crackling, as she builds it back up. He listens, and imagines how she looks.

 

He imagines, and hardly realizes when the rustling occurs just the other side of the partition. He holds his breath and listens.

 

Her hand creates a slightly rustling noise, as it draws back the fabric—his ears ring with it. He waits, eyes squeezed shut, and he knows her to stand in the opening, checking to see if he’s awake, he presumes.

 

After a moment, she steps fully into his makeshift bedchamber.

 

He listens as Belle gingerly steps away from the bed, to the trunk, and slowly, carefully, he peeks at her, watches as she lifts the trunk and puts away a few folded and mended linens, returns a book to the shelf, picks up a stray sock from the floor. Before she turns back, he shuts his eyes again. Now, in the dark, he waits to hear the curtain rustle, signaling her exit.

 

The sound never comes.

 

Instead, he hears another rustling of cloth—she’s put a hand to his blanket, just to the side of his foot. He waits, and finally the rustling happens again: she takes a step closer, her hand moving forward.

 

She does this thrice more, and Rumpelstiltskin hardly hears the sound for the pounding in his ears, but as her hand arrives at the side of his leg, just above his knee, he realizes her aim and almost groans for it: she’s after the dagger, at last. Internally he notes a sudden pain, for he’d always known it would come to this, but had wished it otherwise.

 

He’d have to kill her now.

 

The rustling occurs again, and suddenly, he feels her fingers skirting his thigh. She’s touching him, and her hand doesn’t stop. She keeps dragging it ever upward. Clever thief, but no matter, he’d not fall for her wiles.

 

The maid drags her hand torturously slow up the outside of his thigh, over his hip bone, across his flank (and it’s all he can do not to jump and laugh, for the flesh there’s sensitive to such a caress), but as she grips the blanket to pull it back, to find the dagger hidden at the sheath tied round his waist, he grips her wrist.

 

The girl gasps, but he doesn’t let her go, instead tightening his hold. He keeps her close, as he leans up on his other elbow. “Don’t look so surprised: You didn’t think I’d just let you have what you’re after.”

 

Belle frowns (and she’s without her cap, he notes) and then smiles. “You mean you don’t want me, Rumpelsitltskin?” she asks.

 

He blinks up at her, dumbfounded at the question, “What did you say?”

 

With her other hand she points to his hidden manhood. They both can see it tents the covers, an overt answer to the question. “I think you want me,” she says it like she’s accomplished something, and rather pleased about it at that. She bites her bottom lip after she says it.

 

“I—“ he begins, mouth dry, completely dry. He stops because he has to tell her no, because of dagger and Bae and a million other reasons. He nods instead, “Aye, I want you.”

 

She giggles and leans down, the hand captured in his wrist touching his cheek, balancing him, as she kisses his jaw, followed by his neck.

 

Gasping, in reflex, he releases her hand—forgets she has a hand—until it lands on his stomach, and then--as he gulps, wondering doubting, _hoping_ —she touches him, her little hand warm beneath his blankets and trousers. “Rumpelstiltskin,” she says.

 

His head falls back with a groan, as he closes his eyes, completely lost to her, her hand, _to Belle—_

 

Rumpelstiltskin yells out, as he kicks himself awake.

 

Looking around frantically, trying to catch his breath, he realizes with relief (and disappointment) that he’s alone.

 

He throws back the covers, sitting at the edge of the bed. Gasping, he runs a hand over his sweaty brow and through his wild hair. It’s not yet dawn, just before, rather, and he’s alone in his bed, alone in his house, except for Baelfire.

 

It was just a dream, he realizes, his head falling, chin to his chest. Though, when he looks down, he curses under his breath. He’s still hard, it would seem. Not unknown to the problems of the mornings, Rumpelstiltskin frowns. It’s a minor inconvenience, but not a terrible problem.

 

Truly, the mornings are the least of his problems, it would seem.

 

* * *

The days pass by in gentle repetition, and strangely, Belle cannot call herself unhappy. It’s the first time, in some time, that she can’t call herself such, that things are somewhat _good_.

 

So Belle knows that trouble stands not a stone’s throw away.

 

She waits for it, the unknown trouble. It simmers in the back of her mind, not exactly present, but never quite absent, either. It lingers, waiting, and as she knows it’s been want to do before, it waits for that unexpected moment to strike.

 

It sits idly in the back of her mind as she sits on a short stool, with a bucket between her legs, peeling potatoes one afternoon. Her fingers sport the wet grit from the peelings, and she remembers why exactly she hates peeling potatoes. As she takes a moment to push the piece of hair that’s escaped her white cap back with her forearm, she looks across the room to where Baelfire works at her father’s spinning wheel.

 

He’s learning the art of spinning this season, and she can’t help but smile at the quickstudy he’s proving to be.

 

She wipes her hands on her apron, and dropping knife and half-peeled potato into the bucket Belle decides to take a break. She walks over to watch him labor. It fascinates her, the movement of the wheel, and she can see how he aims for his father’s deft, memorized actions.

 

Of course, he’s only a boy and still learning; she spots the knot before he notes it himself.

 

“Careful, Bae,” she warns.

 

Baelfire dashes forward tugging at the knots, but in his haste, he knocks the bobbin loose. In the a flurry, rushing forward to catch the falling part (which he does, but Belle gasps, seeing what’s going to happen before it actually occurs, unable to do a thing to prevent it—a common problem for her) he stabs his finger on the sharp spindle.

 

“ _Ah!_ ” the little boy cries out, sticking his bleeding finger in his mouth, dropping the bobbin a second time.

 

The bobbin and dirtied spindle roll about on the wood floor, Belle picks them up and after wiping the needle, puts them back into place on the wheel. “Bae, are you alright?” she asks, taking the boy’s wrist, to see how deep the wound goes.

 

He hisses as the air hits his finger—but she can see that it’s not terribly deep, not even enough to merit a bandage, though, sometimes, it’s the little cuts that hurt the most—and under his breath curses, “Fucking quim.”

 

Without thought, Belle drops his hand and slaps his cheek.

 

The movement’s largely instinctual, and more sound than sensation at that. In the silence following the bellowing snap, it takes a moment for Belle to realize what she’s just done. She gasps, eyes wide and a hand (the hand) covers her mouth.

 

She’s just struck the son of the Dark One.

 

Baelfire’s eyes too, widen as his hand rubs at his blushed cheek, mouth gaping, as he looks up at her, completely shocked. When he turns to look at her, with his dark eyes, she forces her shoulders back (she won’t apologize, for the mild correction, no matter whose son he is). However, in the boy’s eyes she see remorse—and worry.

 

“We won’t tell Papa,” he says instantly, the smart lad, well-knowing, like Belle what his father’s response would be to such actions.

 

“Won’t tell me what?” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice calls from the doorway.

 

Belle’s eyes go wide, and she tries to shut him out, but everything is Rumpelstiltskin (not the spinner, the _Dark One_ ), and she can just see it now, feel the coming magic, the smashing of her bones.

 

“It’s just, I think you’ll be angry,” the boy says, haltingly, and Belle thinks, _damn, the prick’s taking payback_. That’s her first thought, followed quickly by, _I see his father in him._

 

Then she relaxes. _Well, if I’m to die_ , she thinks, _at least I’ll know it was in the efforts at raising the child up right._

 

“Angry about what, son?” the father asks, intrigued and more than a little excited.

 

Bae’s eyes flit between servant and master.

 

“Go on,” the Dark One urges.

 

Belle sighs, “It’s fine, Bae. Tell him.” She won’t beg. She didn’t beg the Dukes of the Southlands and Frontlands, and she certainly isn’t going to beg her life from the son of a spinner.

 

But then, Baelfire’s a quick boy and learned a long time ago that apologies, excuses and pleas make no difference to his father, or to the Dark One, rather. Instead, he chooses a medium his father excels at: deception.

 

“Bae?” the father says, taking a few steps into the house.

 

“It’s my reading lessons.” Bae looks sheepish, but proud too. “She says I’m better than you at my letters now.” The boy positively beams.

 

 _Gods above_. Belle thinks, but has enough sense to feign embarrassment.

 

“Is this true?” he asks her.

 

She shrugs her shoulders, but then looks over at Rumpelstiltskin, pulling her head down between her shoulders, like the snapping tortoise hidden inside its shell, “Well, he does practice a lot more than you.”

 

The imp falls for it, or perhaps, the one who falls is the doting, proud father. “He should be better. He’s my son, after all.” Then he smiles; he dares to look positively _human_ —except of course those teeth. Try as she might, she can’t get him to use the branch.

 

“That makes him smarter.” He grabs his son about the shoulders and rubs his hair encouragingly. “Keep up the good work, Bae.” He gives his son another pat on the back, before turning to the maid, “And you as well, Belle.”

 

She blinks, still a bit stunned.

 

“Keep up. The good work, that is,” he adds.

 

“Yes sir,” she says, and Belle smiles at them, for an instance, imaging they are just a simple well-to-do village father and son for whom she works.

 

She imagines she didn’t almost die today, imagines that there aren’t problems on the horizon, that her father isn’t ill more often than not, that there’s no magic, no Dark One, no war, just a family and a job with the whole of summer before them.


	8. Chapter 8

Belle escapes soon after (for when teetering on what she knows must only be a temporary respite, it’s best not to dally), and taking up the bucket beside the window, goes to slop the pigs. They’re fine enough in size, but not near fat enough for slaughtering. Not time to boil a hog till the weather turns—as her father used to say—fine eating for weeks, come the freeze.

 

He doesn’t say such things anymore—

 

“Belle?”

 

She jerks, her hands around the upturned bucket, still needing a final toss to expel the accumulated leavings from their meals. She turns her head to see Baelfire walking to her. She doesn’t trust her nerves to hold, and instead turns back to her task, balancing the bucket against her chest, tapping the bottom with one hand. The pigs crowd about greedily. None too quiet, neither.

 

She can still hear the boy’s steps. “That’s a bad word, isn’t it?”

 

Belle, surprised, chokes on a laugh, almost loosing grip on the bucket, and forcing her face stern, says, “Yes— _very_.” She turns from the pen to face the boy, and setting the barrel wrong side down, takes a seat, “Where in thegodssnames did you learn that word?”

 

“Lachlann,” he confesses.

 

Belle sighs—of course that particular friend stood as cause of this. She’d have to speak with Lachlann’s mother, the friend proving to be a poor influence. Yes, market day next, she’d—

 

Nothing.

 

Belle has to do nothing, because this isn’t her son, or brother, or sistersson. They’re not blood-kin. It’s not her place, and it’s most certainly not wise, these maternal inklings. Had not helped her as a soldier, and certainly would do her no better as maid to the Dark One. The sellslove had been right—Belle kept getting these urges, these  _ideas_. She kept thinking…

 

But she’d just have to stop; that’s all that had to be done about it, simply tamp down those annoying little inklings (and certainly before market day next).

 

That reminds her, “Bae? Do you remember your mother?”

 

The boy takes a moment, frowning. Finally, he nods, “A little, I think.” He pauses, “I have a drawing of her, think my father or someone drew it.”

 

Belle gives a sad smile thinking of another dead mother, “Pretty?”

 

“Aye.” Baelfire tilts his head then, “Why?”

 

Belle waves him off, “Oh, no reason.” She smiles then, taking in the child. His cheek looks back to a normal pallor (her strike more bark than bite, after all). “Thank you,” she says, slowly, “for what you did. For me.”

 

Bae nods, slowly, and then shrugs. Her smile deepens at that, the young and bashful gesture. Honest too. He’s all good intent, this boy, Belle realizes. All light and hope and belief. “I acted too rashly,” she frowns, “but you must understand why I did what I did?” She looks up at him, her young master, under his mass of untamed curls, “I’d like you to.”

 

“Yes, I understand,” Bae pauses, confusion on his face, “or I think I do.” He shakes his head, “Perhaps not all?”

 

She laughs, unbidden, at his youth, his beautiful, blind purity. “I did what I did, well, firstly, because those words are vulgar—you know what that word means,  _vulgar_?” she asks.

 

He nods, but Belle waits for him to answer his notion of the term, as in their reading lessons, “Common and bad. Nasty?” the last added with an unsure tone.  

 

“Correct,” she agrees. “Those words are all those things: vulgar and cruel, and those are characteristics, you most certainly are not, Master Bae.” She remembers back to her own mother (and there they are again, those damn inklings), how her mother might have explained such things, “A gentleman reveals himself to be anything but, by such low actions and words.” She gestures forward, behind him, “Look at this house, your fine, new clothes. Soon you’ll be reading and writing all on your own. Your father wants so very much to give you a good life.” She sighs, tired (she’s always tired), “You must be worthy of all that your father’s trying to do for you, yes?”

 

He gives her a solemn nod, and Belle returns it. She stands then and briefly, on impulse reaches out and cups his cheek. The boy doesn’t recoil (and Belle does her best to ignore the immense relief that fact brings to her). She drops her hand and taking up her bucket tells him, playful, “Beside, I don’t think your  _other_ friend would be much impressed by such words.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Morraine, of course,” Belle taunts with a wink before walking back to the house, leaving the blushing boy alone in the yard.

 

* * *

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Rumpelstiltskin asks again, chancing a look over his shoulder to the din of commotion behind him.

 

Belle rolls her eyes, “My chandlery’s perhaps not that of a guildmaster, but I know well enough.”

 

The sharp note in her words turns Rumpelstiltskin back to his books, but his ears continue to train on the activity behind him. The girl’s set up an entire operation beside the fire for the making of candles.

 

“I’d rather we’d beeswax,” she tells Baelfire—the boy enchanted with the whole idea of making one’s own candles rather than buying them from the barkeep (“And what then am I to do with all this sheep lard? No, no, we’ll make our own,” she’d said. “Simply enough done,” she’d said). “Mayhaps next year.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin’s body tenses instantly: Next year, she’d said.

 

She plans to stay that long. How odd.

 

(How thrilling…)

 

Rumpelsiltskin shakes himself of the thought and turns back to his ledgers, and grudgingly, he must admit, the candle at his table stands all too low. Milha had never made candles for them. Never done much about the house. It startles him, this girl’s seemingly endless initiative. The domestic, little bustling-bottom’s always scurrying about, boasting of this idea or that notion of how to improve their lives.

 

(And she plans to stay till next year…)

_Don’t be ridiculous old man. She doesn’t plan to stay._

Rumpelstiltskin sets his shoulders, stooping in his chair to escape the voice, but of course, he cannot, for Zoso’s in his head. Always in his head.

_Who could stay with you? Not even your wife wanted to stay, not that she had much a choice, in the end._

 

The spinner holds in a growl at the sniggering Zoso, hating that his benefactor now stood privy to all his sullied past, all his shameful losses. “You don’t know that,” he thinks to himself, “she might stay, for–for Bae—“

 

Zoso laughs, booming voice echoing that of the stranger’s he’d met upon the road that fateful night:  _She won’t stay. She’s a woman—all the same, their kind, like Milha, like that Seer._

_She’ll be gone and who knows, perhaps she won’t be the only one…_

 

Rumpelstiltskin throws a frantic hand through his hair, pushing back the dark thought, the one that taunted the edges of his mind from time to time (but with increasing frequency of late).

 

The notion that one day, his Baelfire, his son, his only weight to the world would leave him–

_And you still think him yours,_ the voice taunts.

 

“He is mine,” Rumpelstiltskin thinks, the words hot as the boiling lard, his blood rushing in his ears, himself flushed and sweating beneath his rich clothing. “His eyes,” he thinks, remembering the words (words, blue as the sky, blue as clear, fresh water from the creek behind their house, blue as the eyes in her face) told to him not long back, “his eyes are mine.”  

 

“Bae, have we any long stick or pole around?” the maid asks, startling Rumpelstiltskin from his struggles.

 

“We could use papa’s walking sick,” the boy offers.

 

“Oh, Bae,” her voice lowers (he can still hear her, the silly, fool). “I don’t know if that’s—“

 

“You can use it,” he calls from the desk, voice gruff and coarse. He clears it, twice.  

 

“Thank you, papa,” Bae answers, “Where—“

 

“Outside, against the smokehouse,” he answers, without prompting.

 

The child runs outside into the night, leaving the two adults alone, the sound of wax a roiling boil on the fire. It gurgles, burping and belching, and sputtering, and along with the stench, he almost wishes he’d forbidden the pence-pinching act.

 

It’s a loud, messy endeavor, but his ears still ring, not from blood or noise, but from the sudden silence.

 

“We don’t have to—“

 

The girl cuts off, and the deafening silence returns (but the house stands not a quiet place, and perhaps he’s going mad. Yes, that’s it quite mad, indeed), “What?” he asks, turning a little to look at her, dazed, and upon the sight of her sweating over the pot on the fire, he hardly recognizes her, this girl, who serves him, who says she’ll serve him year next, and then? What then?

 

“Your—your cane, we need not use it.”

 

He blinks at her, and slowly, coming back into himself, he finds his anger, and it centers him.

 

(She won’t stay. They never stay. Not for a cripple like him.)

 

The hesitancy in her voice grinds the man’s jaw—she pities him the crutch (not  _his_  cane in any event), Frowning at her, he scowls, “It’s fine.” He turns back to his books, but upon second thought, sets his quill back into the inkwell, choosing to address the breach of propriety, “However, you really ought not—“

 

His words cut off as Baelfire bursts into the room, staff in hand, “Found it!”

 

Belle looks hesitantly at the seated man, her face shining from the heat of her task, more than one hair escaping her head scarf.

 

She stares at him, and she ought not do that either. “Well?” he snaps, impatient, “what is it now?”

 

Belle huffs a breath from her bottom lip (the hairs giving a mild attempt at flight but falling back to their sticky perches immediately thereafter), looking between father and son. “Bae, perhaps we shouldn’t use your father’s—“

 

“I care not,” he waves off her presumption, shaking his head.

 

They turn back to their task, and he to his, but what with the boiling pot and Bae’s chatter, the house’s silence bothers the Dark One no further.

 

* * *

 

After the woolen wicks had been dipped and dipped again to grow to tapers large enough, left to dry hanging outside, and the fires banked for the night, Belle asks her master, “What should I do with, with your cane?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin cringes, “The walking stick, you mean?”

 

He doesn’t call it his, she notes. “Yes, I’ve cleaned it. You want it back outside?”

 

“I hardly care what you do with the old thing.”

 

The statement parades as flippant, but Belle’s not fooled. She asks after his anger now, the anger evident in him since Baelfire had made the suggestion, “But earlier?”

 

Sighing, the man sets down his quill with more effort than necessary for the movement. He turns in his seat to face her, “Earlier?”

 

Under such scrutiny she balks, but upon second thought, she draws herself up tall—fine, if he cares not to remember, she does care to remind: “Yes, you seemed,” Belle pauses, searching for the proper word (she can hardly tell the Dark One to his face that he’d been pouting), “ _displeased_.”

 

“Did I?” he asks, but without giving her time to reply adds, “and why, pray, would I be displeased?”

 

That’s the very question, indeed, she thinks. “The cane.” Rumpelstiltskin’s face plays at put-on confusion (she’s not fooled), but as oft happens, he’s worked down her tried patience, getting the rise he clearly desires; a saucy eyebrow arches and Belle tells him, “If you didn’t want us using the thing, you should have just said as much.”

 

His face snaps to a frown, “’Twasn’t the cane, dearie, and if you must know, aye, I was, how did you so eloquently put it?” he asks the room dramatically, and as was his way, he mocks her airs (hardly airs that she know more large words than he, coming from a merchant father and gentry mother), “ _displeased_ —yes, that was it—I was displeased at your rather loose lipped ways around my son, and would will, if it pleases you, lass, to keep a tighter grip about that in the future when the boy’s about.”

 

“What—what are you talking about?” She’s lost, not the slightest notion of what he speaks (and for a brief panicked moment, her mind returns to the day not long past when she’d slapped young Bae, but that can’t be it, surely not).

 

“Your words, mistress.” He turns back to his books, “Should think a woman of such high learning could be troubled to keep track her own wagging tongue, going on about things that are nothing but white lies and faerie dust.”

 

“No, I didn’t—“

 

“ _You did!_ ” he near-on shouts, but after a nervous glance up toward the young master’s loft, he continues in a lower voice,

 

“’Beeswax for year next, mayhaps’” he mimicries. “That sound familiar?”

 

Crinkling her forehead, Belle shakes her head, “I didn’t—“ She drops her words at the memory, the plan told to the boy (and who stands the flippant one now?), “I did.” She admits, solemn.

 

“Aye,” he censures, raising a finger, “and you shouldn’t.”

 

Turning around, his words are muffled, but she can still hear, “Not when you’ve no intentions of the sort.”

 

The lecture strikes at her, and a chord within her tugs (and it’s near enough to the one that keeps asking when she plans to talk to the mother of Baelfire’s naughty friend, the one that worried over his hands around boiling lard, the one that reminds the master to put away the books when the candle burns too low, else risk his eye sight).

 

“I don’t know that,” she refutes, “yet.”

 

“Don’t you?” he asks, incredulous. “I know you, Belle of the Southlands, or do you forget so soon that I tracked down your past.” She goes red at the reminder. “And by my count, this stands the longest you’ve ever stayed in one place, dearie, so don’t take me the fool, and lead my son on with notions you’ve no intention—deep down—on keeping. I know you,” he repeats, “you’re waiting for the old lunatic—“

 

“Don’t call him that—“

 

“Save your scoldings; my words don’t change what he is, that I know for certain. You’re waiting till he’s well enough, and then, you’ll be off again, running to the gods know where.” He eyes her, sharp and knowing, “So, let’s leave the play acting for children, and keep such silly falsehoods to yourself, at least when my son’s with you.”

 

He turns away, but Belle doesn’t move. He’s right. It’s true: she waits on Maurice—she knows that, deep in her heart, even if she’d forgotten of late. She’s been waiting, always waiting, for the next chance to run, and if tonight, she should return to a father of able body, she knows without a doubt that she’d be long gone by morning.

 

And yet, her conscious, along with that irksome chord, calls out, and Belle feels regret. She feels remorse, “I did not mean–“

“Precisely, you didn’t  _mean_. We both know what you mean to do.” His words are sharp, but he doesn’t turn around. Waving a hand toward the door, he dismisses her, “See to it you speak not otherwise. Now, off with you.”

 

Belle, hurries to the door, but keeps her shoulders square (and her tears in her eyes) until she’s deep into the forest between their separate roofs and beds.

 

* * *

“Did you and papa have a fight?” Rumpelstiltskin hears his son ask early one evening.

 

The girl says nothing, and he waits, hidden in the shadows (but even if they looked his way, neither would see him). Finally she answers, “No.” She says it again, firmer the second time, “No, not really.” They continue to walk from the stream up the hill, Baelfire hard on her heels.

 

Rumpelstiltskin scowls, for too many a night the boy could be found not far from the lunatic and his daughter’s hovel. It should not bother him, but it does (neither should he watch them, but he does).

_No_ —not  _their_  hovel. Saorla’s hovel, old, dead, Saorla’s. Hers it ‘twas before, and hers it will be again.

 

Once they leave.

 

“But—“ Bae begins, however Belle stops him.

 

“ _Bae.”_  The maid gives his son a pointed glance (it’s not sharp as any he’d give to her, but he bristles at her audacity, just the same), then, having the boy’s full attention and awaiting ear, she continues, “sometimes… sometimes,” she shrugs, her arms full of a basket of laundry (his and Bae’s, he recognizes), “people just have stretches of time when it’s more difficult than others, does that make sense to you?” The boy shakes his head. She tries again, “Well, you see, the problem is people don’t— _can’t—_ always agree, but that’s not always a problem,” she adds hastily, “and sometimes it’s a good thing, even. Sometimes, it helps one of them learn, sometimes both.” She stops, sparing the boy a glance. “I’m not making much sense, am I?”

 

Baelfire shakes his head, “No, not really, but can I stay for dinner?” The boy looks up hopeful—and the maid moves her mouth in such a way ( _rueful_ , he thinks, the word sticking in his mind from the night before when she’d read it, spelt it, and defined it.

 

For Baelfire. Of course) that he knows her to imagine her little lecture already quite forgotten. “Maurice promised teach me how to make my wooden sword specially fitted to my hand.”

 

“Ah, he promised to help make it ergonomic, did he?” she says, knowingly, “that’s a favorite detail of his.”

 

The boy scrunches his brow and asks, “Ergo-what?”

 

“Ergonomic.” She waits for the boy to repeat the word slowly, which he does, correctly the second time. He looks up waiting for her to explain it. She’s predictable in that, at least, her teaching methods. “Means fitted to one’s hand,” she pauses, adjusting the basket upon her hip, to leave free a hand, shown to his son, “or body I suppose. Anything that makes a task easier or quicker for a person could be called making it ergonomic. Father very much likes to make his inventions ergonomic.”

 

She misses the slip of her tongue, referring to it like he still makes anything (but a nuisance). Rumpelstiltskin notes it. “And yes,” Belle tells the boy, “you can stay, if father is well,  _you know_.”

 

The boy nods, and they continue up the hill. Rumpelstiltskin wonders what they’ll find, but wonders more what Belle had meant about disagreement and learning.

 

Then he wonders just when he’d begun to think of her by name.

 

* * *

 

He’s a mystery, Belle realizes.

 

Well, hardly  _realize_. She’s known him to be rather indiscernible, his moods one thing, but his motives, his intentions—that stands quite another matter entirely.

 

She takes little note of him, as she scrubs the fireplace stones, for her and Baelfire have taken to sitting there as the fires burn low and the night’s cool, reading for the light, but sooty bottoms hardly do, and so she scrubs, when the master speaks, surprising her: “What think you of  _her_?”

 

Belle drops the boar’s hair brush, bristles blacker than before, if that were possible. It clatters and she runs the back of her hand to push away the drenched locks escaping her head scarf (they always seem to be in the way, those little locks of hers, and never,  _never_ , seem to grow. How can that be? Cut at the wrong moon-cycle? Or simple luck of the stars, for certain she’s learned that their favor she’s not stood beneath for some time).

 

“Beg pardon?” she asks, rather shocked.

 

He turns from the window, and Rumpelstiltskin all oblivious to the out-of-the-blue nature to his question, says, none too understanding, “The  _girl_.” Belle still looks up at him without knowing his meaning, and at length, sighing the man explains, pointing out the window, “Bae’s friend, the girl–flaxen hair—what think you of  _her_?”

 

“Ah,” Belle says, and sitting back on her heels, she tells him “you mean Morraine.”

 

“Flaxen haired one?”

 

She smiles at that—for though she’s nary thought the word, the girl’s hair be quite flaxen indeed. A good word, for a spinner, she thinks too. “Yes, that one,” she tells him, voice gentle.

 

He nods once, curt, awaiting her reply.  Wiping her hands on her apron she stands, throwing the brush into a bucket of water. It’s dirty water. High time to walk to the stream to change it, and if that be the case, then best to take the day’s washing and dishes. As she walks across the small room where she keeps the baskets, she answers, “Truth be told, I like her.”

 

He speaks not, again, nodding and turning back to the window—she notes this from a secret glance while collecting the sodden things. The children play together, swords, and what’s more at the few forms Belle has taught them from her time soldering at the front. She’s surprised at his wanting her opinion—though how high in esteem he holds it, Belle knows not.

 

Quietly, basket in arms, she walks to the window, beside him—though not terribly close. Again, she cannot help but smile at the pair: the boy is quick and has a man’s balance, against the taller, bold girl; now they are evenly matched.

 

She remembers only a few days past teaching them the army stances:  _“Woman’s trick is the deft nature of her wrists,”_ she’d said to Morraine, looking the woman-child in the eye (such grown-up eyes; the front taught her many things, but how to play her strengths to defend her life was not one of them), _“use it: move fast, but_ subtle _. You need no big, dashing movements to unarm your opponent. Rather, watch him, what his fingers, when he tenses and tightens his grip,”_ (she always says  _him, his, he_ , for she was a girl-soldier once too). _“_ Knowledge _, that be all the power you need.”_

And turning to her sweet boy:  _“Now, Baelfire, your natural strength and quickness helps you.”_ Adjusting his stance, she corrects, _“Both knees bent. Keep your shoulders up, ah yes—_ there _—much better indeed, but don’t pull back when you jab at her—I know this is play, but if you want to learn, you must practice properly—follow through, putting your full weight behind. Yes, there, much better, in deed.”_

 

They’d taken to the lessons better than expected, now sparing in the yard with much better form than before; she’s proud of them, Belle realizes.

 

“I—I didn’t have many friends, growing up,” Rumpelstiltskin speaks haltingly, as if the words nigh near refuse to come. “It is  _well_  that Bae has someone. Friends.”

 

She makes a little scoff, “Yes, I understand that.” She nods,

 

“’Tis very well that he’s not the same.”

 

“You claim to know something of being friendless?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin asks in dubious tone, “I hardly believe that.”

 

She bristles, “Truly. I had few friends, and fewer still who were kind to me without cause growing up—I know what it is to be, as you say  _friendless_.”

 

He’s quiet a moment before saying, “But why?”

 

Staring out the window, she answers without emotion, for long ago she’d determined to cast aside resentment for which there was no use in a world gone to such a new and altogether insurmountable hell, “I was common; castles are not kind to the common.” Sparing him a glance, Belle adds, “Surely even spinners must know that.”

 

“Aye,” he says low, “I know it.”

 

Their eyes catch a moment, the two friendless people, different from one another and both strangers still to their own people. Quickly they return to Baelfire and Morraine (another set of outcasts, the poor, spinner-boy and the deflowered girl-solder). Abruptly he asks, “Where did  _they_  learn forms?”

 

“You know your forms?” Belle asks, forgetting momentarily the tension in her surprise that Rumpelstiltskin knows anything of sword-play.

 

“O’Course,” he eyes her sharp for a second, “you’re not the only one ‘round here been near a soldier’s camp, dearie.” Looking back to the window he adds, bitter, “I was a real soldier, not ogre fodder, like now.”

 

It shakes what she knows of the man (husband and now a soldier too?), but the disdain in his voice prompts her to tell him, makes her half wonder if she were soldier or bait, or both: “I taught them the forms.”

 

Belle turns to leave him, to fetch her water and launder their things, but halfway to the door, she stops. Thinking, she knows there will be no better time to say what she’s desired to say for some time, and he did ask her opinion after all, “You were right,” she begins. Turning around, Belle looks at him, staring back at her from the window. “About, well, about  _me_. I should not have told Baelfire about planning for next year, for I did not mean it—as you said. I’m sorry. I—I was wrong.”

 

He stares, mouth open, and she knows, she’s completely shocked him (nearly shocked herself, for apologies have never come easily to her prideful mouth). It’s silent for some time before he musters, “I—“ he cuts off, and instead, dropping his head in the barest of nod, he simply tells her, “Thank you.”

 

(Yet there’s nothing simple to an apology accepted.)

 

She lowers her head, “I will not say such things in the future.” She slips out, leaving him, and despite the full bucket, she feels lighter that she has in many months.

 

* * *

If he were a gentleman he’d spar with her.

 

She’s alone, in the copse, doing her useless little sword dance, and if he were a better man he’d meet her, match her blow for blow—if her were  _brave_. Instead he watches her, surrounded by only trees for witness (and him, but that hardly counters for anything).

 

They’re not far off from the grove of cherry trees (where he caught her and she blushed), and like that day, now, she too pushes herself too far.

 

She’s lovely, sweating and shining in the summer sun (for yes, suddenly it’s summer, and when exactly that happened, he’s not sure, but it is and there’s so much to be done with the sheep, with the house, with his search, with his son, and yet, he watches her).

 

It’s her day off (and still he follows her—and still she plays with his son).

 

She’s magic, as much as any smoke he can throw or creation he could conjure up, her body smooth, curved, like she’d fit in his very hand…

 

(Ergonomic, she’d said, fitted to your hand, she’d said.)

 

She works too hard, swinging around one of the boy’s play swords, in neat routines he remembers from life on the front, and it’s hot today, with all her panting, Rumpelstiltskin wonders why she does not stop. It’s a long way back home, and she’ll be too tired for the walk if she keeps at it.

 

Such a long way back from where they came.

 

She slips and falls, suddenly, to her rump, and the man lurches, a hand reaching for her, to her, but just as he opens his mouth to tell her off for being foolhardy, she begins to laugh. Laugh and moan: she must be sore and hot (or over-heated of another kind entirely). Sprawled on the unforgiving ground (her backside will sport many colors tomorrow, he’d wager), she rolls her neck, and rubs her own shoulders, throws open her shirt to catch the breeze, and presses hands to her own ribs, as if counting them. Next she rubs at her calves, visible under her rucked up skirts. The acts like one would walk a worked over horse, and Rumpelstiltskin wonders if that were one of her tasks in the castle which she did not call home, where she had no friends.

 

(Though she had at least one, and Rumpelstiltskin knows his name: Gaston.)

 

She’s perfect (and she’s not, she’s infuriating, and he hardly knows what’s inside her head most days—but she said she was sorry and said Bae’s got his eyes).

 

She rolls over and sits up suddenly, scrubs at the leaves caught to her face, rubs at her eyes like she’s tired (of course she’s tired). Stretches a heaving breath (her pert breasts up into the air, the man cannot possible  _not_ note), and the little grove of trees hardly holds her: she’s too big for it, too big for a world like this, his world.

  
Belle’s of another.

 

That’s the most infuriating thing of all. She’s infected this world that’s not hers, and everywhere he thinks on her, where she is, what she’s doing, what she thinks on in that impossible head of hers.

 

Always following after, and one day, she’ll go too far for him to follow.

 

(They always do.)

 

* * *

_  
_

Belle feels when the boy falls asleep, but not wishing to break the warmth of the moment, continues to runs her fingers through his curly locks, from brow all the way to his crown, and continues to read from the old tome.

 

After a few pages, she takes a break at the end of the page. She leans back against the stone hearth, warm on her back. The nights are chilly from time to time, despite it being closer to high summer than not (nearly half over at that), and closing her eyes, she exhales, surprised at her contentment.

 

(She pushes back the thought that it can’t last, as the fire cracks and pops behind her, the boy lying on sheepskin, his head in her lap—she plays at mother again, but it’s so easy, and she so full of ease in it. Just this once more, Belle tells herself.)

 

She raises the book, to return to reading, over Baelfire’s stuffy breathing (and both Rumpelstiltskin and she know the boy’s like to snore most nights than not), when the man’s pen stops scratching at his ledger, “He sleeps.”

 

It’s no question, but still Belle answers him in a whisper, “He nodded off, yes.” She slips a scrap of cloth into the book and sets it beside her crossed legs. She stretches, her rump only a little sore from sitting on the hard floor for so long a time, and turning her head from side to side, cracks her neck. She’ll sleep quite well tonight.

 

She moves her hand to gently shake the boy’s shoulder, when Rumpelstiltskin calls out, “No need to wake him.”

 

She nods, and imagines he’ll snap his finger any minute, magic the boy to his loft, but instead, she watches as he rises from his desk chair and walks over to them. It’s not until he stands near atop her, that Belle realizes his intention: the father plans to do the task by hand himself.

 

Slowly and carefully, Rumpelstiltskin kneels and takes hold the boy beneath shoulders and bent knees, and despite all her skirts, she feels it acutely as his hands graze her shin, and she too, a hand to the boys head, helps him into Rumpelstiltskin’s arms.

 

They brush. She shivers.

 

(As did he?)

 

Baelfire doesn’t wake, but does squirm for a moment in the man’s hold. She watches as he walks away with him, and gulping, remembers that once, he held her too, like that. He deposits the boy into his own bed, and after tucking him in, pulls the drapes round the makeshift room. By way of explanation he says, walking back to his desk, “I’ll sleep in his tonight.”

 

She nods, and moves to stand, but he speaks quietly, “You don’t have to stop.”

 

It takes Belle a minute to realize the request. Hand on her knee she frowns (but there’s a quirk of the lip to it), “You’d have me read to you?”

 

His pen pauses. He’s deliberating, she thinks, or at least considering his words (he does that sometimes, and she can practically see the wheels turn in his head, grind against the gears of his mind—as if he were one of her father’s turn-by-hand machines). At length he answers, “I would.”

 

Perhaps she’s not the only one content at their play act.

 

Relaxing back into the stones, Belle smiles to his back, and opening the book once again, spine cracking loudly, loud as the spitting fire, she says, “Then I shall.”

 

* * *

Rumpelstiltskin knows not how long she’s read aloud, just for him—a story for only them—giving up his letter practicing, to watch her, reflected in the window above his desk. He can see her dark shadow beside the glow of the fire, his candle low, but bright enough to obscure the night outside their home. He hardly hears the words, rather only the lilt of her voice, like one of the minstrels, he has seen from his days as a solider, or even in the larger towns (more than one singing a song of the great power who ended the Child’s Ogre War. He lingers to listen to those. Sometimes.)

 

He does, hear, however, the spine growl, as she closes the book. Turning immediately, he asks, frowning, “Why did you stop?”

 

She gives him a smile, “It’s late.” A beat. “I have to see to my father.”

 

Ah, the old lunatic, her personal milestone: the reason she goes (the reason she  _stays_ ). “Of course.”

 

They stare for a moment, and as Belle’s eyes crinckle in thought, he realizes he’s stared too long. He begins to fidget, under the scrutiny, “Quite late, indeed–”

 

“Why didn’t you use magic?”

 

“What?”

 

“On Baelfire,” she explains, still sitting at the hearth, book in her hands, “why didn’t you use magic to send him to bed?”

 

“Oh,” Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head at his son, “he doesn’t like it,  _magic_ , that is. Silly boy—he’s young; I think that’s it.”

 

Belle nods, but says nothing (and he’s staring again). She stands, putting the book away on the shelf where it belongs—before her, everything had belonged anywhere, but now things had places,  _homes_ —and gathering up the little pot she carts to and fro every day, she makes to leave, “Sleep well, Rumpelstiltskin.”

 

Eyes not leaving her (widening at his name—for names have power, as he well knows) when she’s already past him, hand to the door knob, he begins the question he’s wondered for days, weeks even, but only in this moment found words to speak it aloud, “Belle?” She stops, faintly, distantly, smiling, “Are you—“

_Pound! Pound!_

 

The two jump at the sound of a knock at the door.


	9. Chapter 9

She runs to him.

 

She runs to him because he is the only one she has. She runs to him because she knows he has the power.

 

Because he _has_ to have the power.

 

Belle explodes through the door (like machines and strange men and like death—or so she imagines), and Rumpelstiltskin startles. She only just sees it, his form jumping, when she throws the door open, but sees it all the same (and any put on look of cold anger and pretentious posture can’t hide that she saw him fear).

 

But postures and cold anger he does put on: “What are you doing here, madam?” He stands from where he’d been stoking the fire—for what she knows not, for it’s sweltering today and she’s soaked through chemise and dress after her run through the forest—and walks toward her. “Isn’t today your _day off?”_ He asks, in a mocking tone and an artistic flick of the hand.

 

He calls her madam when he’s anger; she learnt to measure his moods. Madam when he’s angriest, lass and dearie, when he’s less so—names that make her feel old and sound practiced and Belle wonders if its what he called his wife, once upon a time.

 

He calls her madam when he’s angriest at her, and she knows he’ll be angrier still.

 

She cannot catch her breath for panting, and he offers her not a chair, instead staring, like he would an intruder, an unwanted interloper begging for help--and isn’t she just that? (Hasn’t she always been just that?)

 

At length she finally manages to speak, “Please, please you must come quickly.”

 

“Come? Come where?”

 

“My father—he’s fainted, I can’t rouse him.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin smirks at her, “It’s bleeding hot today. Try some water,” he states flippant.

 

“No, I’ve tried that, _please_ , you must help.”

 

“Oh,” he implores, eyes wide, “must I?” He puts a hand to his chest, “I must help you,” he points to her, “the little turncoat, I should help _you?_ You’re quite mistake, mum, I’d not spit on the old bastard to help you.”

 

“Godsbedamned Rumpelstiltskin, please, I’m begging you, please help him.”

 

That gains his attention, and his eyes flicker up to hers for only a moment, before he slowly walks to his desk and takes a seat.

 

(It’s at this moment, this slow deliberate move while seconds pass—and with each her father’s condition possibly worsening—that she realizes Baelfire must be in the village today, for she’s not heard hide nor hair of him this entire time).

 

“And what, madam, do you have to offer me in exchange for my services?”

 

Belle hardens her face, stiffening, “I’ve nothing—as you well know.”

 

The man before her leans back in his chair, in mock consideration hands in his lap, lips pursed (and she thinks of another time that she’d had nothing and a man had _considered_ ).

 

Finally, he speaks, “Seems to me that all you have is _fealty_.”

 

* * *

“Belle?” the spinner asks, a hesitancy to his voice Belle rarely hears.

 

She turns at the sound, and the maid’s surprised to find her breathe catching. Forcing herself to let it go, she exhales slowly, and offers instead a small smile to the father, her employer, the man who carried his son to his own bed, who asked her to keep reading…

 

“Are you—“

 

_Pound! Pound!_

 

She jumps at the sound of knocking (banging, really) upon the front door.

 

It’s unlocked, Belle thinks to herself. She exchanges a wary glance at Rumpelstiltskin, and finding him as flummoxed as herself, he returns her look with a shrug of the shoulders and a raise of the eyebrows.

 

She scrunches her own eyes, and this— _this_ _insistence­—_ tries her brain and her breathing picks up pace as she grimaces at the spinner. With only the wind and shadows at her back and him breathing down her neck, time’s been on her side when it’s come to decisions, but what to do with a stranger at the door—

 

 _“Hullo?”_ it calls, _“I can see ye from the window, the light and—and people_. _Please, I—I come for help.”_

 

At that, Belle straightens. The voice speaks honest, and though wary, she chooses, not looking to Rumpelstiltskin, to open the door. She reveals a startled woman, of low voice and lower stature. She’s a dark and ruddy thing. She’s full-grown, but only just. Were she not hunched into herself, mouth agape and certainly not expecting the door to open for her (and were Belle young and unscarred, happy and a fool), the maid might once have thought to question this odd little thing and make to mayhaps one day call her friend.

 

Sharp, the southlander asks, “Yes?”

 

“Yes?” the woman, with a low voice and questioning eyes asks back.

 

Belle sighs, “You said you needed help?” She raises her hands impatient, “We haven’t got all night.”

 

Her demeanor wakes the girl slightly. Standing a touch taller, the youth steps into the light from the doorway. Belle can see she’s dark and handsome, with dark hair and dark eyes and dusky skin—a woman from the east, and not poor by the gilding on her cloak trim. “Well, yes, yes I did, but—“ Looking past the maid, she attempts to peer into the house, and Belle shifting her weight blocks her view. “But I was expecting, well I was expecting ye—“

 

“The Dark One?”

 

She looks Belle in the eyes again, and she’s perhaps older than first glance assumed. Nodding she admits, “Well yes.”

 

Giving her falsest of smiles (honed from years of sniveling cousins with curled locks and their own gilded cloaks) Belle shrugs, “ _Well_ , to speak to him, you must speak to me first.”

 

Perhaps it’s only her imagination, but Belle imagines somewhere to her right she hears a snort.

 

“Are ye his clerk?” she asks, confused, “but ye’re a woman?”

 

“And you a simpleton. What’s your name and business?” Belle snips, impatient.

 

“I—I’m Rabina, the—last born.” Sighing and realizing she can only proceed thorough the woman before her, Rabina Lastborn explains, “Well it’s something of a delicate situation and a long story,” she pauses, waiting, but when Belle says nothing she continues, “I have something of an odd heritage. My brothers, ye see, are, well, ye’re never going to believe me—“

 

“Try me.”

 

“They, well, they’re ravens.”

 

“Ravens?”

 

The woman nods.

 

Belle shrugs, and sparing the smallest of glances to her side, she says, “I’ve heard stranger things yet.”

 

“So ye believe me?”

 

“I’ve still not heard a problem.”

 

“Alright, yes, that is to say, my brothers were turned to ravens before I could remember them, and so I grew thinking myself the only child to my poor parents, but two fortnights past, I came home to my mother and the lay doctor--”

 

Belle makes a sound at that, doctors not generally being to her liking.

 

“Yes?”

 

“It’s nothing,” she shakes her head to clear it, “you were saying your mother and the doctor?”

 

“Yes, indeed, I came upon them and heard it all, growing up, I’ve always been a wee and sickly thing, that being why the doctor comes to the house whenever he comes to our town, but this time, they were discussing my unmarried state and that it was unlikely that I would ever find a husband, because of the curse!”

 

Belle frowns, “Curse?”

 

“Indeed, I never knew that I was cursed, but it was true that my parents had approached many with the offer of my hand, along with my inheritance as the only child, and none would have it, but that day, I entered the kitchen, and made my mother tell me the truth: I have seven brothers. _Seven_. Can ye believe it?” Her dark eyes grow wide, with the revelation, and Belle can imagine her own shock as an only child, had she discovered unknown siblings. “All of them boys, my parents had hoped for a girl for their last child, but when I was born, I came out so sickly and close to death. So my father sent my brothers to an enchanted well, but the Nyx who guarded it refused to give up her water and cursed them by turning them all into ravens. So ye see ye must help me—I can’t bear it if I’m the reason my brothers spend their lives as animals, all because I live.”

 

Belle stares at the girl who pants, having finally finished her tale, and the maid knows Rabina finds joy in the telling of the tale of hers—whether it stems from pride or relief in the confession, Belle knows not. Perhaps both. Yes, likely both.

 

“And you need my help why…?”

 

Finally seeing the Dark One’s form, the girl stumbles back into the night, causing Rumpelstiltskin to make an impatient sound. He waves Rabina back inside, “You’ve seen the Nicor; you needn’t shudder at my face, girl.” He walks to the table, and Rabina, following Belle, they all three sit round it together. After a few moments of stuffy silence, he asks again, “You _know_ what the water spirit requires—what would you have me do?”

 

“I think there’s another way,” she pauses, “where no one has to die.”

 

Belle frowns, her mouth a hard line—she’s learned this lesson already, and it’s a painful one.

 

Rumpelstiltskin smirks. “Someone _always_ has to die.”

 

Rabina shakes her head. “No, _no_ ,” she turns and digs at a harried pace through her satchel, revealing a scroll. She unfurls it on the table, pointing to a mountain range—much father than Belle hard dared travel. “I tracked them, and every moon cycle, on the night of my birth they fly into a cave in this mountain.”

 

“And…?”

 

“Yes, getting to that. Ye must understand, my life is nothing without ending this—”

 

“Of course.”

 

“—And ye’re not the first magical creature I’ve consulted.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin frowns. “ _Fairies_ ,” he spits.

 

Rabina nods. “One of them gave me a bone, that could serve as a key into the mountain.”

 

“Then what do you need _me_ for?”

 

“I lost it.”

 

Belle puts a hand to her head, “Oh you foolish girl.”

 

“I’ll be damned.”

 

“T’wasn’t like that. Ye, see, I needed to use it to track my brothers, but used once it disappeared.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs, “Then what do you expect me to do about it?”

 

“Rumor holds that ye’ve magic untold.”

 

“Rumor holds many things and rarely truths.”

 

“So ye can’t do magic?” the woman frowns.

 

“ _I_ can do many things, but keep patient be not one of them—“ Belle makes a sound at the back of her throat, and both men look to her, but she keeps silent. “I’ll ask a third and final time, what are you asking me to do?”

 

“I would have ye give me a way into the mountain and a way to make my brothers turn human again.”

 

“Ah, so your little faerie friend didn’t help with that little pesky detail at the end?” Rumpelstiltskin jests in a cold tone. Leaning back in his chair, Rumpelstiltskin crosses his arms over his chest, “That’s a hefty request, lass, and what exactly would I gain for this?”

 

“I’m quite well off, and with my dowry, surely—“

 

“No, no, no,” Rumpelstiltskin waves her off. “I’ve no need of your money, girl.”

 

Rabina frowns, looking about the comfortable but hardly opulent home, “But ye live—“

 

The spinner twirls his hand a gold coin appears between his fingers, “I don’t need your cursed money.” He tosses the coin into the air, and upon snapping his fingers it bursts into nothing more than a cloud of smoke, startling the guest, “Don’t question me again.”

 

The girl nods.

 

“If money’s all you have to offer then you’re wasting my time.”

 

“It’s not.” Looking between Belle and Rumpelstiltskin, Rabina slowly pulls an old tome from her traveling bag.

 

“A book?” the Dark One sneers.

 

“It’s not just a book,” Belle says, quietly. Raising her eyes to the man’s, she adds, “It’s magic.”

 

“Yes—how did ye?”

 

“I’ve traveled far and seen enough to know that’s no ordinary book.” Belle pauses, and then adds, “The runes,” she points, “they give it away.”

 

“It’s a book of spells, yes,” Turning back to Rumpelstiltskin, the girl admits, holding the black book tightly, “I’d give it to ye.”

 

“If it’s so powerful, how did you come by it?” the spinner asks.

 

“I searched far, before turning to those more powerful than I.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin waves off her sentence, “Wouldn’t it be far simpler to just, get it over with?”

 

The girl frowns, and says again, simply, “But I don’t want to die.”

 

The Dark One waves a hand in frippery, “None do.”

 

The man swallows, and after a stifling moment (and the fire’s too hot for a night like this—lucky Belle had done the candles some time back before this insufferable heat, but with the sheep to still be suffered and the spinning as well, she wonders at the misery of months to come, but such tasks could be done out of doors, in the cool shade, and perhaps the summer’s like to not be so dreadful as last, with no war camp fires and food in their bellies and money in their pockets. Aye, not so bad indeed) Rabina rises, reaching to gather up her book, “I’ll go then.”

 

“No, wait,” Belle says—a touch too quickly (and hasn’t she always been too fast in accepting deals not fully comprehended? Yes, she’s alive and here and continuing on in her foolhardy ways, but she remembers wanting to _live_ —and she remembers wanting to _die_ —and each day choosing again and again and again…) Belle does not look up, thumbing through the book—another hasty choice—and she feels it’s power. Even though she’s no magic to her name, to her blood, the deal’s perhaps not too hollow. “He’ll do it.”

 

“ _He will?!_ ” two voices ask, both raised.

 

She spares only the quickest of glances Rumpelstiltskin’s way before focusing on the handsome girl with seven brothers and life debt far too deep for one so young, “Yes, he will.” Belle, looking the girl over, takes her hand, and yanks off her ring, “Use this for the enchantment.”

 

(It had worked well enough for her own death wish so very long ago, after all).

 

“How now, dearie?” the Dark One bristles.

 

“You know, with your,” she waves her hands, “that thing you do,” Belle motions with her hand mimicking Rumpelstiltskin’s gestures. “Use this as a talisman to keep her brothers to their right form.” A moment passes, and he looks between the two women. Belle leans closer, “The book is very fine,” a second later, “please.”

 

Snatching the ring out of her hand, he waves his other around it, a puff of smoke enveloping the jewel. He then tosses it back at the intruder, “That should do the trick.”

 

“But what of getting inside.”

 

Sighing, he walks to the hearth, grumbling of stupidity and the ignorant. Turning back, he sets a hand knife on the table, the one with which Belle peals potatoes, and brusquely slides it across toward Rabina.

 

She barely catches it.

 

“This too should work nicely.”

 

She eyes it warily. “It’s a lot wider than the bone.”

 

“And sharper.”

 

“But it will work?” she asks, hesitant.

 

“Oh, aye, it’ll work.”

 

The girl nods, “And what of the Nyx?”

 

“That is not my problem, but” he holds up a finger, I think she may yet, be appeased. He turns to Belle—and she can see, he play-acts—in a mock-whisper, “Not near so complicated as everyone thinks.”

 

The girl nods, “Thank ye. Thank ye,” before running out into the dark, and her footsteps have long disappeared from their woodland, before Belle speaks, “I—“

 

“How dare you.”

 

She sighs, “Don’t be thick—I did you a favor, just then.”

 

“Hardly. Ordering me about as if _I_ were the servant—you, with your high manners, and your—Don’t you turn your back to me,” he calls as she stomps to the door.

 

“If you can’t see the wisdom of what I did, then I’ve nothing more to say. Goodnight.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin sleeps in Baelfire’s loft, and it’s too small and too stuffy, and his head is too full of all the things he ought to have told her, but when he hears her arrive in the morning, he does not climb down the ladder.

 

* * *

 

 

He hardly knows why he keeps them, his sheep. They’re a damned nuisance, and as the Dark One, he no longer needs them for their income. Yet, here he stands, knife in hand, frowning at the thought of shearing each and every one. The day stands already hot, and the hour not yet noon. He sighs at the sheep, shaking his head. He ought be above such acts. He _is_ above such acts.

 

From behind their cottage, Bae’s voice reaches him, and at the high sound—higher once, but changing daily, going through the highs and lows, and godsbedamned, when did his boy start growing into a man?—Rumpelstiltskin turns. A beat later, he hears it too, Belle’s voice, nearer than Baelfire’s own.

 

Hands upon his hips, he frowns. _Finally._

 

He needs this done with, for it will only grow hotter, and he leaves this night. Though, truly, he need not leave till the faire in Longbourne, but he ought learn the going price for wool, and what’s more he itches to be away (away from his sheep, away from the village, away from _her_ ).

 

 _“Is that so?”_ her voice, so soft—nothing like her words the night prior (He knows she’s not all sweet words and gentle nights beside the fire. He wouldn’t trust her if she were).

 

“Aye,” his boy answers, “since I was five winters, and I haven’t cut myself or an ewe, for the past two. I could teach you!”

 

He hears silence for a moment. “We must check with your father about that—he’s not like to be generous today, I’d wager.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin scoffs. No, he wasn’t like to generosity, not after the stunt she’d pulled.

 

“Is he angry at you again?” The honest curiosity in his son’s voice (and touch of exasperation) make the man almost smile, but the spinner trains his face to a nasty look, just as they round the corner, his son a handful of baskets, and Belle only one, with knives enough that they not stop to sharpen them throughout the shearing.

 

When her eyes catch his, they harden, the wrinkles in the corners loosening, her mouth falling—and she’s so few years, but already the jowls beneath the hollows of her cheeks sink lower than they ought, she’s not old, but she’s not young, and for a beat he rescinds his frustrations, but then he hardens and frowns right back at her.

 

Belle walks straight to him, and before he can protest, she pushes the basket of knives into his arms, and just as sharp states, “He’s nothing about which to be angry with me.”

 

His mouth gapes like a dead fish, as she saunters off. An instance too late, he turns and counters, “Don’t I, though, lass?”

 

Belle stops and turns. She waits, the kerchief about her head dancing in the mild wild, the only thing making the summer sun tolerable (it will assuredly die off before the midday hour, as all reprieves must) before stating matter of fact, “No, you don’t.”

 

She turns to enter the house, but he’ll none of it. “Not so hasty.” She halts, but does not turn. _Typical._ “You’re to sort them.”

 

“Sort?” she asks.

 

“Aye, the sheep. Sort them.” It’s a pesky task and he knows it—she does not, but she will, soon. “By color; I want the whites first, then the grays, browns and blacks. Piebalds last.”

 

She positively bristles, and Rumpelstiltskin rejoices in the little triumph. “All into the little pen?”

 

“Aye, but ewes before the rams.”

 

He hears a sigh, but she says no more—as she rightly oughtn’t. He watches as she balances first one bestocked foot and then the other, upon the fence post to knot up her skirt, as the milkmaids do. Her hair too, goes up, up, up, as hardened hands knot it through her headscarf, revealing a long neck and sun-freckled shoulders.

 

Scars too, he nary can forget all those scars.

 

Rumpelstiltskin does not look away as her hands go about their task, methodical and hardly quickly. It takes a moment, but as Belle’s head tips back toward him, not enough to see, but toying with the idea of the glance, he realizes she takes her time for his benefit.

 

She’s not beautiful—any city freeman would be quick to say, those not tied to neither lord nor land, and the merchant class too would not spend coin for her touch, but she’s caught his eye, and that’s all it takes, damn her, but this performance is not to entice, but to irritate.

 

It works. “We haven’t all day, lass.”

 

Unflummoxed, Belle looks to Baelfire, “The crook, if you please, master Bae?”

 

“Oh, right,” the boy drops his own baskets, and hurries to toss the shepherd’s hook to the maid. The father shakes his head, as if he had not moments before been equally stilled by the woman—it was unsettling this affect of sheer femininity after so many years alone, just the two of them, and he ever so desired a mother just as much as Rumpelstiltskin wished his own secret desires. They watch as the tied up and strung high girl wrangles the first few ewes into the pin, before the man and his son enter to sheer them. Rumpelstiltskin does the first few, murmuring gentle words to the frightened animals, steady hands doing the work he’s done since his own youth. He’d sheer most the white, and then give the task to Baelfire for the rest.

 

It’s a nasty business switching between pins, keeping a steady stream coming in and getting the nearly shorn out, and he smirks as he hears Belle’s voice clicking to the unruly creatures. They’re nearly finished with the ewes, when they hear the shriek followed by the thump.

 

Then the groan.

 

Baelfire’s body begins to jump to attention, but Rumpelstiltskin holds him steady—for he’d a knife in hand, halfway through their smallest black lamb. “Steady now, I’ll see to it.”

 

The boy’s breathe evens, and only then does his father rise, wipe the sweat from his brow, and quickly hop the fence and bend over to lift the maid to her feet.

 

Already halfway there, she argues with him, “I don’t need your help.”

 

“You’ve already got it, dearie.” She pulls away, and frowns at him. Kneeling, he retrieves the crook, “I see you’ve met our freemartin.”

 

Belle frowns, “Really,” for once he’s caught her off guard, “The piebald?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin nods.

 

“I’d not thought, without the horns.”

 

“Ones ‘round here don’t present, but she’s surely a freemartin. I daresay not unlike most females I know.”

 

“You’re not witty.” Her eyes dart to the next pen, and she drops her voice below the bleating of the sheep, “Making sport of me is easy, and that’s why you do it,” she turns to go, but stops, turning back, “ _and_ because you know I’m right. Find a more challenging sport.”

“Where do you think—“

 

“To do the laundering,” she replies, tossing the crook to him, “so it can dry by nightfall.”

 

He grumbles, and Baelfire looks strangely at him, but they say nothing, and continue on with their sheering.

 

* * *

It’s after midday when they’ve finally taken all the baskets inside, and their naked flock has returned to their proper pens, only then does Rumpelstiltskin enquire as to Belle’s whereabouts. It’s too late for laundering, but he’s heard neither hide nor hair of her since their sharp words earlier.

 

“I think she’s picking weeds,” Bae offers, before running about, toy sword in hand (and the sight still gives him both pride and slight nausea).

 

He saunters down toward the river and what he finds causes him to grind his teeth. "It’s physically impossible for you to stay out of trouble, isn’t it?" She looks up, and suddenly he recalls that he stood there and watched her bathe. He knows what she looks like bathing, and still he finds her from just as pleasant dressed as a washing woman (and it’s getting exhausting being infuriated with her half the time, and entranced not a second later). He shakes himself of the memory, and returns to grimace at the kneeling girl. “Lass, I speak to you—turned hard about the ears as you are about everythin’ else, now have you?” 

 

Belle throws down the bundle of weeds she’d been prying from the ground, “What?” she yells, running her forearm over her face, and Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head, groaning. Her tone irritates him—the nerve: she’s making him answer to calls like a man at an inn or livery, like a postman, the nerve of she. He’s none such. He’s the damned Dark One.

 

“Now you’ve done it.” He reaches a green-specked hand down and hauls her to stand before him, “Let’s see how much damage you’ve done, eh?” He appraises her face, looking for the telltale signs of a romp in the pokeweed, but finds only a trace of clear liquid about her face, and neck, and arms.

 

He remembers himself and lets go his hold on her, and Belle stares at him strangely. He remembers, then too, that she’s not of these parts, she would not know the disaster wrought by the weed she’d taken war against. “You foolish girl,” he says, reaching a hand to her face, he catches on his finger the largest drop. “Now, this’ll tell—poison or sweat?” he asks, giving her a haughty look (so few times these days has he been able to take the ground of one more knowing, what with her letter lessons and dithering about his house and magic books, and he with only empty spools and magic hands and shepherd crooks). He brings the pointer finger to his nostrils and sniffs it. Salt. 

 

Salt and Belle. 

 

"Sweat, it is," he says to himself, looking at his hand—he has the strangest urge to lick the harmless drop of her off his finger, to try her taste. Scowling and shaking his head he rubs it away into his cloak, "You’re quite lucky the pokeweed didn’t take to you." 

 

Like the manner to which everything around her tended…

 

"Pokeweed?" she asks. "You mean the pink and green stalks. The watery ones?" 

 

"Aye," he nods condescending, "the one’s you’ve been elbows deep in all afternoon, or so I hear." Rumpelstiltskin eyes her face, but sees nothing but perfection. Scars and perfection and blue eyes like the river. "Don’t be doing that again. ‘Tis nasty stuff—and nastier to the one who meddles with it." He walks round her to survey her work: a long line of the tall weeds lie shriveling in the summer sun along the streambed. He scowls again before banishing it all with a wave of his hand. "Be sure to wash your clothes with boiled water, aye? I’ll not have my Bae taken with the poison for your silliness. Nor the baskets of wool." 

 

"I did not know," she says, low, and he knows he tests her even temper. Fine. She needs it and he desires it. So much the better. "We don’t have it in the south," she adds, and the last, her curiosity getting the better of her anger Rumpelstiltskin imagines, "What—what’s it do?"

 

"Bumps, all about the skin. Water filled. Itches like the devil and just as difficult to shake." He remembers the time Bae as a toddling babe had waddle into a patch. "Right nasty stuff." He turns back to the house to leave, "Wash well— _hot_ water—and watch Baelfire sharp—”

 

"You’re leaving us again?" she asks, more urgent than he’d expected. 

 

"Indeed." 

 

She nods slowly to him, “That explains the cloak in this heat,” she tells him calmly, tugging on the brocade sleeve. 

 

Frowning he pulls back. “I dress as I please.” 

 

"You dress," she begins untying the knot behind her neck that holds her headscarf in place, "for cooler places." She shakes out her hair before adding, "and for discretion." 

 

He stares at her blankly, more than a little surprised at the conclusion, as she runs dirty fingers through dirty curls. “What? You’re not the only one who knows how to hide." 

 

He scowls at that—being found out. In a cold tone, not suited to the bright day, he replies, “It’s almost like you want me gone, madam.”

 

Turning on his heel, he begins back up the hill, but he stops, as she grasps the edge of his heavy, gilded cloak again. “I don’t want you gone.”

 

He turns on her, quick with a finger to her face, “You make a poor practice of it, ordering me about, challenging me at every damn turn.”

 

At that, she straightens, sloughing off any openness of person he’d discovered only moments prior (and for a moment he regrets it). “You’re the Dark One—“

 

“I’m aware, dearie—“

 

“—And as such, you need to keep up appearances,” Belle huffs, impatient. “Rabina’s not to be the only visitor of her kind to come knocking. It’s a simple enough task, and she’ll spread the word of your power for others to fear.”

 

His eyes widen; he’d not thought of that, only of payment—powerful, but meager. No, she’s not all sweet words and gentle nights beside the fire, and he wouldn’t admire her if she were.

 

“I don’t want you gone. Baelfire hates it when you’re away, but I do want us safe, and the more your legend spreads, the safer we are, and if that means making you angry enough that you have to go disappearing again, then so be it.”

 

Then she ruins it. “Don’t flatter yourself, lass. I leave on business, not for anything concerning yourself.”

 

Belle has the decency to look a little cowed, and after a silent moment, she asks, “The Nyx will require water, won’t she?”

 

“Aye, water and sacrifice.”

 

“The knife’s not to replace the bone.”

 

“No, it’s not—little does _Rabina Lastborn_ know.”

 

“I thought not.” She pauses, before adding, “Will it be enough?”

 

“I don’t know.” Rumpelstiltskin replies, shrugging, “is it ever?”

 

“A finger for passage and freedom,” She make a noise at the back of her throat and shakes her head, thinking of trades and fathers without limbs. It ought to be enough. (She even dared hope it for a second).

 

Rumpelstiltskin stares at her, “Yes?”

 

“It’s nothing,” Belle shrugs, “but if southward you aim, bring back some almonds, if you please.”

 

“Almonds?”

 

“A kind of nut—“

 

“I know what they are,” he interrupts, exasperated, “but _why_ do you need them?”

 

She shrugs again, “A recipe I’m of a mind to make.”

 

She’s always of a mind, the way he sees it. He waves a hand “Fine, fine,” He nods, to the space between them, their accord, “’Til three days time, or ‘haps a bit more.”

 

He disappears, but Belle blinked, and missed it.

 

* * *

 

As always he does not disappear only to reanimate himself the entire distance from their small village to Padirac—he’s not yet mastered such feats, but works himself to farther and farther-still distances. Rather this time he appears just outside the village before Hangman’s crossing, for the early eve is pleasant, and now without limp, he finds himself enjoying the occasional walk about.

 

Carlotta’s out when he walks past. She smiles, “Why so fast, Rumpelstiltskin?”

 

She does not call him Dark One, nor Spinner (his past and his future). She calls him by name, and that’s a power all in its own. He shivers, even beneath the thick robe—it’s been sometime when any woman has called his name in the pretense of seduction. Damn her, he’d not expected her out so late after noontime and yet before nightfall. He raises his defenses, “You’d far fewer words for the likes of me, in passings past,” the words are sneered, and harsher than he’d planned them in his head.

 

The crossroads sellslove laughs aloud, “Aye, and you’d no gold then neither.” She turns coy again, “Come now, let me give you som’it to ease what ails you. You look like you could very much use my services, Rumpelstiltskin, and I’ve ways enough to prevent child and boil alike.”

 

“How tempting,” he replies, dryly (and his maid claims he’s not a wit).

 

“Are you quite decided, then?” She asks, arms crossed, the knowing gesture making the most of her ample bosom.

 

“I’ll manage,” is his curt reply, but it’s a moment too late, and his eyes lingered a touch too long on her breasts and hair like spun gold (strange for one her age) and fine-enough teeth.

 

Carlotta smiles, “That’s the first you’ve considered me, Rumpelstiltskin. Is this your little maid’s doing? Got you in a tizzy does she?”

 

“Hardly,” he sputters.

 

“No, I don’t think that’s right. I think you like the look and sound of her.” She licks her lips, “I think you wake hard and sweating and quite in need of some assistance.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin bristles, “I’d no gold for you before, and I’ve none for you now.” He waves a hand and magics himself farther along the road southward. He pulls up his hood as well.

 

* * *

The going price for wool he’d wagered, and it’ll be no different at the faire in Longbourne come a few week’s time; what’s more: there’s no sign of Milha. His business finished in two days rather than three, he wanders about the portside town, listening for news and looking over wares. The bustle both excites and alarms him, these city-folk with their problems and aims.

 

He’d never have made it in this urbane setting had he listened to his wife all those years past and moved somewhere new and unknown.

 

Rumpelstiltskin buys almonds (but takes no pleasure in the purchase) along with salted pork. He decides over a bauble for Baelfire for some odd thirty minutes before deciding upon a set of rolling hoops and sticks, lacquered and shining (and _new_ ). Upon heading out of town, after a surprisingly useful conversation about the landing patterns of pirate ships this time of year, Turin, Undine or Glowerhaven being more likely respites for their kind, he eyes the shop of a book binder. Through the window, he notes a very fine, leather ledger. Rumpelstiltskin leans in closer, imagining Belle sitting at his desk, quill in hand, writing away in the ledger, a slight smile on her face.

 

He shakes himself of the fanciful notion. The idea of his maid sitting at his desk was ridiculous, and more so the idea of her being happy about it. The only times he saw her happy were with Baelfire in play, or when she read, the strange girl.

 

Yet still, he continued to stare at the ledger. Finally, he moves to enter the shop, but as the bell overhead rings, a person catches his notice at the fruit stand down the street. Rumpelstiltskin’s hand falls, the door shutting and the bell sounding again.

He knows that face, would know it anywhere: the son of the blacksmith. The self-same son who he turned into a snail not many months past.

 

Enraged, Rumpelstiltskin is upon the boy in moments, swiftly and silently forcing him into an alleyway.

 

“Please, I beg—“

 

A scaled hand the young man’s neck silences him, and the Dark One throws tosses back his hood, growling, “When last we met, you were decidedly slower.” Giving the neck a firm squeeze, he asks, “How the fuck are you standing here?”

 

The wastrel squeals immediately, “It—it was her!”

 

“ _Her_ who?”

 

“The girl,” he grits out, wheezing from the hand on his windpipe, “she works for you, told me of witch to change me back. Please—spare me—“

 

 _“Of course she’d betray us_ ,” Zoso chuckles.

 

Rumpelstiltskin squeezes tighter, “You’re lying.”

 

“I swear it. Said her name was Margie—”

 

The Dark One vanishes, leaving the fool coward to fall to his hands and knees, coughing alone in the alley.

 

* * *

 

Belle startles, when she hears Rumpelstiltskin reappear, dropping his bag and purchases on the table with a bang. She doesn’t bother looking up, instead, eyeing what he’s brought. “You’re early.” She nods to the sack of almonds, “I know these. You can make wonderful soups and tarts with them, and they’re good for anything that needs to be thickened—“

 

She yelps as he grabs her arm, yanking her back against the wall, “I always knew you’d do something like this.”

 

Belle sees the blind rage in his eyes, grimacing for the tight hold, “What are you talking about?”

 

“You _dared_ to help the bastard who tried to maim my son.”

 

Her eyes widen, her mind turning for something, _anything_ to say, “I—“

 

He knocks her back into the wall again, “ _Don’t_ deny it.”

 

She hardens then, the pain in the back of her head blossoming into a steady pound, “I won’t. I told them of a witch of my acquaintance. What the fool was doing so close to here I’ve no idea.” Of course Duncan the blacksmith’s son ratted her out immediately after paying no heed to her admonition to stay far and away from the little village of his birth.

 

“That wasn’t your concern!”

 

She realizes then that this comes from not righteous anger for Baelfire (lest he be more practice and calculating, playing out his usual song and dance), no this passion tells her that she’s made him feel impotent and helpless.

 

She knows he hates feeling like that.

 

Belle gulps, daring her true reply, “You punished him, and me for that matter; enough is enough.” She blinks away the headache, “Now let me get back to work.”

 

A moment passes, and she thinks herself a complete fool. Then the Dark One takes a breathe, “Too much work to replace you at this point,” the words are like the bitterest of herbs she knows, and he does not release his hold, instead, tosses her from it.

 

Of course, she loses balance.

 

She catches on the edge of the table, cutting her arm and slicing her sleeve. Her rump too will likely sport a bruise on the morrow. She makes a moan, but no effort to rise.

 

Belle jumps when his hands are on her again. “I don’t need—“

 

“You do and I’m not asking,” he hauls her to her feet and drags her behind the cupboard. She eyes him strangely, and he supplies, in a sheepish tone, “So Baelfire’s not to see.”

 

She scoffs. “Can’t have him knowing your temper, could we.”

 

He frowns, but his healing hand continues its work, knitting the skin. Next in a minor puff of smoke her sleeve is mended and the blood gone from it.

 

She looks down at the work, “You weren’t always so good with blood.”

 

“I practiced.”

 

The words are simple and they make her shiver, remembering the early days when he’d brought her soiled linens in red and demanded silence, “And what of the son?”

 

She does not clarify; she does not need to.

 

“He lives,” Rumpelstiltskin spits. “He’s not worth the troubles.”

 

She knows he doesn’t believe himself, but the words save face from an oversight made in heated rage.

 

“Who’s not worth the troubles?”

 

They both turn, peaking heads around the cupboard to see Bae standing just on the other side.

 

“And why are you hiding?”

 

At that they release the air they’d been withholding, fearing what the child had heard or seen.

 

Rumpelstiltskin huffs, exasperated (though, of no one’s fault but his own), “You’ve a brain, Baelfire. Use it. If we’re hiding, clearly we were doing it from you, for reasons you ought not know.” After giving his son a brusque hug, and passing him the toy still in his cloak, the man trudges outside with nary a look back at Belle.

 

* * *

Baelfire doesn’t speak of the incident until he knows he and Belle are alone. He’s got a brain after all. “What were you and papa talking about?” he asks her as she feeds the pigs the dinner slops.

 

She sighs, “Bae, it’s as your father said: things you ought not know.”

 

Slipping a foot through the lowest fence peg, he leans toward the sty, watching the pigs fight over the scraps. “But why not?”

 

She’s quiet for a long time, but then Belle’s quiet a lot of the time, so he waits, looking from the pigs to the first couple of stars up in the sky, wondering if he can still convince her to read to him tonight, especially since both she and his papa have been acting really strangely since he got back home. When Baelfire begins to think she isn’t going to answer him at all this time, she explains, “Think of it this way, Master Bae, I remember my mother and father often having important things that they discussed that weren’t for me to know. Sometimes because they were surprises, other times, simply because there are many things children do not need to know.”

 

“So you’re saying you and my father are like parents?”

 

Belle fumbles with the bucket, before setting it to the ground, “No, that’s not what I’m saying at all.”

 

“But you just said—“

 

“What I’m saying is that there were two grown ups around when I was growing up, so they had secrets that they didn’t want to share with me.” She cups his cheek. “It’s alright. There’s no need to trouble yourself over this. Some things are too big for young ones.”

 

“But I’m old enough for war, aren’t I? I should be old enough for secrets,” his voice cracks, a reminder of just how old he is.

 

She straightens to her full height, and even with his two most recent growth spurts, he still is far from her equal, “No, you’re not old enough for war. That’s why your father took on the curse. Children are not soldiers. Even grown ups are never truly old enough for war.”

 

Belle grabs the bucket, but turns and walks straight into his father, who neither one saw in the growing dark. She begins to fall backward, and the boy lunges, but doesn’t get there in time, instead, it’s his papa who steadies her, hands on her arms, “She’s right, Bae.”

 

She pushes out of his hold (and no, Baelfire doesn’t think there’ll be any reading tonight), “Thank you,” she says.

 

His father nods his head, and both leave him, just as curious as before.

 

* * *

 

He remains angry at her, and suddenly its high summer.

 

Belle’s surprised at first, likening it to a cat that takes note of an ant. She’s shocked such a powerful creature is disturbed by one so small and inconsequential, but then she recalls that her actions were a humbling, demonstrating the power of one so small against his cursed abilities.

 

She’s strangely proud, and it makes no difference his put upon demeanor; she makes his meals and cleans his clothes just the same as ever.

 

So it goes, until one day, Belle’s day off, that she returns to Saorla’s hovel, after delivering hair dye in exchange for medicine for her father from Marcas, to find her Maurice face first on the ground.

 

She’s unable to rouse him, not with shakes, nor water. He breathes, but it’s with an effort, as the sweat upon his whole body reveals. Belle does the only this she can: she runs to Rumpelstiltskin. She runs to him because he is the only one she has. She runs to him because she knows he has the power.

 

Because he _has_ to have the power.

 

Belle explodes through the door (like machines and strange men and like death—or so she imagines), and Rumpelstiltskin startles. She only just sees it, his form jumping, when she throws the door open, but sees it all the same (and any put on look of cold anger and pretentious posture can’t hide that she saw him fear).

 

(She saw that he fears her.)

 

“What are you doing here, madam? Isn’t today your _day off?”_ He asks?

 

Through her panting, hands upon her knees, she begs, “Please, please you must come quickly.”

 

“Come? Come where?”

 

“My father—he’s fainted, I can’t rouse him.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin smirks at her, mocking in his tone, “It’s bleeding hot today. Try some water.”

 

“No, I’ve tried that, _please_ , you must help.”

 

“Oh,” he implores, eyes wide, “must I?” He puts a hand to his chest, “I must help you,” he points at her, “the little turncoat, I should help _you?_ You’re quite mistake, mum, I’d not spit on the old bastard to help you.”

 

“Godsbedamned Rumpelstiltskin, please, I’m begging you, please help him.”

 

That gains his attention, and his eyes flicker up to hers for only a moment, before he slowly walks to his desk and takes a seat.

 

(It’s at this moment, this slow deliberate move while seconds pass—and with each her father’s condition possibly worsening—that she realizes Baelfire must be in the village today, for she’s not heard hide nor hair of him this entire time).

 

“And what, madam, do you have to offer me in exchange for my services?”

 

Belle stiffens, “I’ve nothing—as you well know.”

 

The man before her leans back in his chair, in mock consideration hands in his lap, lips pursed (and she thinks of another time that she’d had nothing and a man had _considered_ ).

 

(She can almost forget those days, during hard work and harder exchanges with the unstable and violent Dark One, but truly, Belle knows she’ll never forget).

 

Finally, he speaks, “Seems to me that all you have is _fealty_.”

 

“Fealty?” she asks.

 

“Indeed,” he titters, crossing his arms and leaning in back in leisure, “Give me one good reason to help you, the woman who offered aid to the man who wanted to chop off my son’s hand—you have nothing! No land, no title, all you have—is that old man, before you’re left with nothing but dust.” Rumpelstiltskin strokes his chin, “That is unless you wish to be free of him.”

 

The words shock her, “You know I don’t.”

 

(Even as she answers, she wonders at her honesty herself).

 

“Even so, you’ve hardly proven yourself loyal, perhaps an oath would bind more securely, hm?”

 

Her teeth grind, without intention, and her fists clench at her sides. It’s to be humiliation, she realizes (and Belle wonders what is worse her body or her soul), but she’ll do it. Swallowing, she takes her skirts in hand and begins to kneel to swear herself to his service, but Rumpelstiltskin stops her, “Ah!” he sits forward and raising a finger, “It’s forever, dearie.”

 

“I know how oaths work!” she snaps. Brashly, she drops to a knee, “What words would you have me swear by?”

 

He stands arms crossed and walks toward her, his little maid. He’s enjoying this, Belle realizes, and at the thought she begins to laugh.

 

Laugh harder than she has mayhaps ever laughed.

 

“What—what’s so entertaining, lass?”

 

Smiling, grim and wicked she stares at him from the ground, and tells him, “You’re no better than them.”

 

Still confused he asks sharp and impatient, “What _them_?”

 

“All those nobles who trampled and mocked us and tried to kill us—you’re just the same Rumpelstiltskin, so give me the damn words and let’s be done with it.”

 

He blinks down at her, and she recalls the day that she’d laughed and cried and yelled at him in equal measure and his kindness that day, so unexpected, and just when Belle’s decided she’ll never see him surprise her with such a kindness again, looking as cold as ice and just as brittle, he yanks her to her feet, “Get up you fool.”

 

“But I thought—“

 

Spinning on her, from just the other side of the threshold, he throws up his hands, “You want to stay here and swear fealty to me?”

 

“No,” she replies honest.

 

“Then let’s see to your father.”

 

* * *

_  
_

Once to the hovel they call home, Rumpelstiltskin bides her roll the old loon to his back. Kneeling down, he considers the possibilities, “When he bleeds, does it stop?”

 

Belle narrows her eyes, “I don’t—I don’t know.”

 

No help. “Take off his shoes.” Rumpelstiltskin conjures a small jar of honey from his storeroom as she works, asking, “Does he relieve himself often?”

 

Belle gives him a strange look, “I’ve no idea.”

 

He huffs at the non-answer, putting a finger full of the sticky syrup to the man’s mouth, making him gum it. After another finger full, Rumpelstiltskin moves to peer at the man’s feet.

 

“They’re too dark, aren’t they?” she states.

 

“Aye.” With another twist of the wrist, he brings forth smelling salts, and kneeling again, puts them to the man’s nose. The combination does the trick. The madman returns to himself with an undignified snort. “Welcome back,” Rumpelstiltskin says. “You’ve returned,” as the man’s eyes flit about for purchase.

 

“Papa!” Belle rushes to clutch at her father’s single hand.

 

“Belle?” the man asks. Blinking, he then takes in the apparition before him, “You again.”

 

Belle chokes out a sob without realizing. “Thank you,” she tells him, too, without much realizing.

 

Rumpelstiltskin swallows at her emotionality, and then recalling her offenses, remembers his grudge. “Yes, yes dearie. Your sincerity’s touching. Now, off you go.” He waves her away. “Leave the men to men’s business, aye?”

 

Belle frowns. “I don’t—“

 

“Of course you don’t,” he condescends, “but you’re not the one parceling out the favor, are you, hm?” Again, he waves a hand to the door, “Shoo, run along now. The least I ought get for the efforts is a supper, don’t you think?”

 

With an agitated and only half-muffled growl, Belle leaves stands to leave, but at the last moment the Dark One speaks up again, “Not so hasty.”

 

She turns back, watching as he helps her father to sit up against the wall of their shack, fire in her eyes.

 

“Thank me, I’m doing you a favor.”

 

He watches her jaw move tightly, “Thank you.” The moment he waves her off, appease, she slams the door; both men jump.

 

“Are you always like that?” Maurice asks, “to her?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin sighs and realizes he still stares, frowning at her retreating form through the window, shrinking into the woods, “Of late, yes.” He stands and finding a cup on the ledge, mixes the honey and water together, “Drink this. All of it.” Under the cripple’s surprisingly strong glare as he drinks the concoction, the spinner adds, “but no, not generally.”

 

Maurice takes a moment before answering. “She’s angered you.”

 

“Clearly.”

 

“What did she do?” the man asks, as if his child could no more do wrong than a newborn.

 

“Betrayed me, for one,” he begins, “and lied, for another.” Turning to the inventor he snaps sharply, “not that it’s any business of yours.”

 

“She’s my daughter: of course, it’s my concern,” Maurice snaps back. He leans forward to say more, but groans, and tilts dangerously, the drink sloshing.

 

It reminds Rumpelstiltskin of the task at hand. “Finish that,” he points to the cup. “Peace now.”

 

The older man nods, and does so. “I thought you were a spinner?”

 

“Even a spinner has a bit of a healer’s hand in a place as small as this.” Bitterly he adds, “Not all of us grew up in palaces.”

 

“I didn’t grow up in a palace, just worked in one for a time.”

 

“But your wife did.”

 

“And she didn’t buy me the job, if that’s what you’re implying.”

 

Turning away, Rumpelstiltskin asks, “Do you want my help or not?”

 

“Whatever Belle thinks.”

 

“Then it’s settled. I’ve a notion, but need more information: how often do you relieve yourself.” The man stares, so he adds, “How often do you take a piss?”

 

“I know what you meant; I was thinking.” After more time, Maurice answers, “Perhaps more than I used to, it’s hard to remember before.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin raises his hands, understanding all too well the trouble with war recollections, “Don’t trouble yourself.” He instead brings forth his cloak pin, “I need your blood.”

 

The man offers his hand, and the spinner pricks his finger upon the sharp pin. After letting the blood pool, he swipes it up with his own finger, tasting it. He frowns, that with the feet confirm it: it’s sweet.

 

A spell of bad blood, indeed.

 

“There’s nothing you can do, is there?” Maurice states, noting the spinner’s expression.

 

He sighs, “You’ve the sweet-blood sickness.” When no sign of recognition passes the other man’s face, Rumpelstiltskin adds, “Some call it the sweet-piss.”

 

“Ah, I know it.” He pauses, looking to the floor, to his over-dark feet, “She said you had powers.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin too looks at the feet. It’s clear that only a matter of time stands between them and further decay, another toll of the sweet-blood, the disease eating away at the limbs. Eyes and privates too, or so he’s heard—though few live that long. He sighs, “I have to see it, in my mind, understand how it works to be able to magic it,” he explains, “to heal, to mend, but this—this—I don’t know where the blood goes _wrong_.” He knows not why he’s being so honest with the broken, dying man, but he admits his limitations, the barriers to his powers.

 

The mechanic of hands and machines understands that, understands all too well, “Then I’m dying.”

 

“To the best of me knowledge, aye, you are.”

 

Maurice takes one breath and then looks the Dark One straight in the eyes, “Don’t tell my girl.”  


“I—“

 

“ _No!_ She won’t stop looking for an answer, and all that for me, no. _No_ , it’d do her no good. I’m old—I’ve lived my life. She’s—” his voice breaks, his one hand gesturing with the words, “I’m not a man of letters or words: I’m a man of tools, of building and workings, and she’s too long lived like—like the dead. It’s time for her to have life.”

 

“She’s smart.” Rumpelstiltskin shakes his head, “she’ll know.”

 

“Then, if you won’t do that, promise you’ll—“ the man pauses, and the other can see his deliberation, his choice, “that you’ll take care of her.”

 

He shakes his head, “I won’t promise you that.”

 

Maurice remains undeterred, “Then as a father—you love your son, yes? She says that you do.”

 

The spinner nods, “Aye, more than my own life.”

 

“Then you know you’d want the same for your child, if you had to leave’em.” For all the smart man’s insanity, he’s got to the core of Rumpelstiltskin.

 

Still the coward to the last, he resists, “She’s not mine. She would never let me, nor do I forgive her actions.”

 

“Then, at least, promise me you’ll do no wrong by her. Promise me that at the least.”

 

Though the spinner feared death, above all else, he does not fear hell, where all those who break oaths are bound, and so he promises, “Alright.”

 

“Need to hear you say it.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin rolls his eyes (but knows the power of oaths, and isn’t strange how not an hour past he nearly made the daughter do the very same?), “I vow to you, Maurice of the Southlands, inventor and cripple as a father to do no wrong by your daughter.” He raises a hand to his chest (and there’s no theatricality to the gesture), despite anger and resentment, “This I vow.”

 

Maurice nods, satisfied, “Thank you. Thank you.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin the father nods. Moments pass, with only the crickets to fill the night air with song, until he clears his throat and gestures to the mantle, “That your pipe, old man?”

 

“Aye, it is. Carved it myself, I did.”

 

“Care to smoke?”

 

Together, he leads the old man outside, using his magic to bring two chairs in front of the door. He gathers up Maurice’s pipe from the ledge (briar wood, common enough in the southlands, but finely carved and lacquered), as well as his own old pipe, hidden in his chest, deep at the bottom, for he couldn’t part with the thing, his bastard father’s highland, bog-wood.

 

The old man calls out something about a pipe tool they’d brought along for some time before having to sell it.

 

“I’ve my own,” Rumpelstiltskin replies, as he packs the pipes, tamping down the dried leaves.

 

After lighting their pipes, they sit together in comfortable silence watching the night descend, and for all Rumpelstiltskin’s desires to the opposite, he feels akin to the crippled mechanic. Strangely, too, he feels pride for the oath he’d made, little as it was.

 

“I feel it sometimes.”

 

“What?”

 

“The arm,” Maurice tells him. “I can still feel it. ‘Tisn’t that strange?”

 

“Not that I’ve heard.” What’s more, he could still feel his old self alongside the new; no, Rumpelstiltskin didn’t find the idea strange in the least.

 

When the finish puffing their pipes, the spinner, spoons out the dottle from both, offering further instruction, “Don’t drink overmuch with your ill, instead chew your basil.”

 

Maurice frowns at him in confusion, and Rumpelstiltskin sighs. He returns to the hovel, plucking a few leaves from the hanging herbs, the fact not missing his notice that they come from his gardens, twins to the hanging herbs above his own hearth, the home-smell of lavender and thyme out of place in the decrepit excuse for a house. He hands over the basil to the inventor’s remaining hand.

 

It too, on better examination, stands a shade darker than the rest of him. It too will shrivel.

 

Nodding to the herbs, Rumpelstiltskin explains, “The chewing eases thirst.”

 

Maurice raises the bunch and nods to the spinner, “Thank you—the plants and the like were always done by the ladies.”

 

He lets the comment roll off his back, “Walk when you can, and sleep with your feet up. Chew the basil, mint as well.” He turns to leave, but stops, “I’ll send her along shortly.”

 

* * *

Belle bursts into the house late, late enough for the candle to be burning low and Baelfire long since gone to bed.

 

He’s at his wheel spinning the shorn wool, wondering if perhaps he ought to have told the madman inventor he’d been lame once upon a time.

 

He’s at his wheel trying to forget the whole of it.

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Belle’s yells, livid.

 

It’s just as he’d said: she had figured out the unfortunate truth. Rumpelstiltskin’s hands never pauses in his spinning. “What’s there to tell?”

 

“What’s there to tell? Tell me you can do something, tell me you can fix him, fix him with your magic!” She’s exclaims frantic.

 

“Calm yourself, madam, or you’ll wake my boy,” he orders. “You’d do well to remember your place—“

 

“Damn my place! My father’s dying, and you won’t do anything about it!”

 

He too shouts now, in his anger his hands picking up speed, “I can’t! Alright! I don’t know how—“

 

“Then find a way, please, you have to be able to do something!”

 

It’s the most emotion she’s ever shown, and it stuns him. He turns back to the wheel, shaking off the feeling, the shiver and gooseflesh—as dimpled as his naked sheep outside. He spins faster and faster still, “You ask, dearie for the impossible—“

 

“You’re the Dark One, damn it, you have to do something—“

 

“You’re asking the impossible, asking for bloody straw into gold,” he barks, plucking and holding up a stray piece of straw from the basket full of his wool. He shoves it into the machine and cranks his foot—the wheel be damned; he’s a point to make. “No one can do that, not even the Dark One. I could sooner spin straw into gold, but I can’t, alright! I wish I could, but I can’t.”

 

Then Belle screams.

 

“What? What’s the matter— _Ah_!” he looks down and he too screams, flying back from his stool, scrambling backward like a crab upon the beach.

 

“What is it?” Baelfire calls from his loft, sleep in his voice. “What’s happening?”

 

Neither answers, hardly hearing him, hardly taking their eyes away from the spinning wheel. When the boy climbs down, he asks again, “What’s going on? Belle, why’re you here?”

 

The maid slowly kneels down, between Rumpelstiltskin, whispering, “You did it.” She takes up the shining strand, turning to him, “You really did it.”

Rushing forward, Baelfire accepts it form Belle, “It’s beautiful.”

 

“It’s—“

 

“Gold.”

 

* * *

They stay up late, trying again and again to feed nothing in and get riches from without. It’s not an easy task with his mind to it, but he focuses on the fire, the anger, those who did him wrong, and their eyes all those who demanded gold that now he had…

 

In the wee hours, they sit with a basket of gold between them, Baelfire asleep in Rumpelstiltskin’s bed once again, too excited to go up to his own loft, and the spinner, feeling the thread between his calloused fingers relents, voicing the inkling idea he’d had for some time (but been reluctant to share).

 

“I could learn,” he tells her. If he can spin straw into gold, there’s a chance he can do this too.

 

“I think you’ve rather learnt it,” she says with a shocked smile on her face.

 

(She loves discovery this girl, for all that the unknown and the new had caused, her heart still cleaves to that joy, he knows little about her, but he knows that much).

 

“No, not that straw.” He clarifies, “I could help your father I just need to know _how_ , learn medicine and healing.”

 

Her chest heaves, “I could help you. You wouldn’t be doing it alone.” Her eyes narrow, “That’s why you’re so good at clothes. You were a spinner and know the details.”

 

“Aye, I can’t heal what I don’t know is wrong, dearie.”

 

“We’ll need medical books.” She considers, a finger to her chin, “Alchemy too, I’d wager.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin nods, “Aye, tomorrow I can go to town for supplies. Surely there’s books out there on where the blood bad.”

 

“The words aren’t easy,” she chances, tempering his surprising exuberance.

 

“I know that.”

 

After she leaves, he falls asleep on the books, the worker harder than usual, pondering this new challenge (and more often than he’d like the fact that she’ll stay now for some time). Dreams come easy with his hope and light heart.

 

But in the morning, Belle never arrives.


	10. Chapter 10

Belle’s never fainted before. She feels so now.

 

She feels as though she’s free and untethered—liable to fall at any moment. She sways with the slightest breeze, so high up above the ground. She’s only been this far above the ground once before, atop the great tower, where Gaston dragged her one, lazing summer, long ago. Looking out, away from Gaston’s grasp, the air hitting her face so sharp it draws tears from her eyes, she feels the world below and beyond to be great and wide—full of adventure—and for her, only for her. Her future stretches forever, past the bright horizon. She feels she could do anything, even fly.

 

But that was long ago, when her mother was alive and Belle wasn’t the wager for death machines.

 

And now, though she feels free and without hold, liable to fall at any moment, higher than she’s ever been on this seer’s tower, Belle feels her stomach drop, not with the slight sway of the wood planks in the breeze, but with bile and dread. She feels the world not to be great and wide, full of adventure, but close and tight. The world presses on her from all around, the humidity and wet of summer too much to take. The world consists of only this moment, of the coming death at the hand of leisurely ogres—she can her them, the crunch pounding in her ears across the empty plain of the valley. A slow death, she hears, of teeth and nails.

 

The screams, every now and then she jumps at a scream from the soon-to-be dead.

 

Belle climbs down, afraid, and she must surely be ash white, for the doctor looks at her with all the concern of one who makes his bread by reading faces and limbs (but for just a moment, she imagines she might glimpse the tiniest touch of care, in the claustrophobic camp). He might care, she wonders, as he touches her forehead with asking.

 

Taking her wrist and feeling for the pulse there, he says, “Water.” The word, cold and remote gives Belle pause—concern, interest even, but no, not care. “Follow me,” he states, heading toward his own area of camp.

 

“But my work,” Belle croaks, her throat dryer than she’d thought.

 

That causes the doctor to turn, his lip lifting only slightly, “Yes, because everyone seems a-hurry today.” He motions around, and true enough, the camp moves at snail’s pace, if at all. The wet day making it hard to breathe, hard to think. No, Belle understands, little war-play will occur today.

 

His tent stands in the rear of the camp, along with the tents of the commanders. He walks in, holding the flap for her from the inside—a belated invitation. He’s no gentleman, Belle thinks to herself, and with a breath, she steps inside.

 

As her eyes adjust to the light, the blue of the tent linen coloring the interior. His tent is larger than her own, larger than the tents of the foot soldiers. There are two cots, one for patients, she presumes, as well as chests and tables. His things are fine, as fine as the tokens her mother brought to her marriage. Scattered about her childhood home, Belle remembers the fine things and knows the doctor comes from the highest level in the gilds. He may not be a physician to nobility, but only just. Wonderful enough to serve the great commanders of the war, lowly enough to be sacrificed. Belle understands the smirking smile—he’s forfeit to this war, same as she.

 

“Water?” he offers, drawing a ladle from the great, waist-high jar beside his bed. He pulls out the singular chair in the tent, handing her the ceramic cup.

 

She sits and accepts the drink. It’s smooth and cold in her hands, despite the heat of the day. She takes a deep drink. Belle looks up at him, shocked, “It’s—the taste.”

 

The smirk returns, “Ah, that. The water.” He shifts slowly toward her, resting a hand on the back of her chair. “I get the clean water.”

 

“Clean?” she asks, confused. Of course, she had noticed the foul tint to the water in the camp, but then she had grown accustomed to the different taste to water in the city, but this water, this water tasted sweet, pure—it tasted like the water from the well back home.

 

“Oh yes, didn’t you know?” he asks with sincerity that Belle believes to be thin. “The commanders lace the water with brimstone.”

 

“Brimstone?” she says, “but why?”

 

He chuckles lightly, “Brimstone better fills the soldiers’ stomachs. Food is scarce, but the war drags on.”

 

“Why do you get clean water?”

 

“Simple,” the doctor explains, “the additive can infect wounds.” His smile returns, “A few cups at meals are hardly missed.”

 

Nodding, Belle feels beads of sweat rolling down her neck, to gather at the small of her back. Suddenly, the air of the tent tightens, heavier than before. Finishing her cup, she sets it down, “Well, thank you for…” she stands, “sharing, but I should return to my work.”

 

“Now, just a moment,” the doctor steps forward, and with nowhere else to go, Belle sits back down, with a thud. “I’ve something else to discuss.”

 

“Something outside the war effort?” she tries to keep her voice light, but her unease is growing. She needs to be outside, where even the tepid air would be better than the stifling tent.

 

“Not exactly.” He picks up her cup, turning it over.

 

“Then what?”

 

“Tell me, how do you think this war is going to end?”

 

Belle straightens up in her chair, “We’re going to defeat them. With the war machines—“

 

“You know that’s not true,” The doctor laughs. “You saw the truth from atop that tour, didn’t you?” He takes his finger, slowly, to barely brush her cheek. Belle gasps, so lightly, she makes no sound at all, but then, as suddenly as it began, he turns away. “You know as well as I do, that there’s only one end to this war, and when it happens, you can bet I’m not going to die, dissected on an ogre’s table.”

 

Belle scoffs, for once this afternoon, finding her feet, “What can you do? Run? They execute all deserters.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” He opens a chest, pulling out a vial, “the benefit to knowledge of medicine—I know both life _and_ death.”

 

Her face twists, “What?”

 

“It’s quite simple,” He shakes the little bottle. “Death, painless death, at the time of my choosing. I’m not going to be torn to bits by ogres, limb by limb. I’ll die my way.” He smiles, and it’s so sure, that it unsettles her. His next works are light as a whisper: “and you could too.”

 

Belle looks down in her lap. She finds that her hands won’t still, so she clutches her dress instead, “So you want to die?”

 

“No, of course not, but I don’t want to suffer more.” He steps closer, holding the vial in front of her. It is a deep green glass, filled three quarters and corked. “You know as well as I, that we’ve no chance before those monsters.”

 

He’s right. She heard the screams on the wind; she knows they won’t end. Suddenly, painless sounds more like a flicker of hope. “You would share that with me?”

 

“Possibly,” the doctor smiles then, a wide grin, “for a price.”

 

Belle frowns, the air of the tent giving her a headache. She knows now her wariness had not been misplaced. “What do you want?”

 

He kneels down before her. She tenses, as he unwraps her hands from their tight grip on her skirts. “Shaking hands make for poor war machines.”

 

She extracts her hands, ” _What_ do you want?”

 

“Let’s call it an offer. I would like to be your, how to say it, chaperone—“ Snapping his fingers, he fingers a the term he’d been searching for, “— _benefactor_ , if you will. This camp is full of men—hardened soldiers—hardly the place for a young woman. I could offer you protection, my care.”

 

She’s not fooled, “But that’s not all.”

 

Another smile, “No, I’ve not the captain’s taste for little errand boys, I would seek your companionship, your intimate companionship.” He toys with the edge of her skirt, “Do you take my meaning?”

 

Belle pulls it from his fingers. “Yes, you mean companionship in bed.”

 

He winks, “I do.”

 

“And you would trade your vial for that.”

 

“Aye, the chance to decide your own fate.” He stands, “I risk much with this. If I were to be found out, I would face the same end as any deserter, but I trust you’ll keep this offer between the two of us, hm?” He crosses his tent, back to the chest, “Think it over. It’s not like we are leaving any time soon.”

 

“Wait,” her words still his hand from returning the vial, “how do I know it would work?”

 

“Wise question,” the doctor says, “I can show you.” He moves to the entrance of the tent, “There’s a soldier bound for death. It would be a mercy at this point to relieve his suffering. Would that be proof enough?”

 

Belle’s mouth drops, “But that is _barbaric_.”

 

He sighs, “’Tis a kindness, and what is more I was going to release him from this world in any case.”

 

She nods and follows him to the larger medical tent. Immediately, the smell strikes her, putrid and steaming, along with the sound of the flies, alighting on the many bodies on the cots throughout the tent. The doctor comes to stop before a body—a man—his face mangled, in gashes, and what’s more, his legs are little more than stumps. The lines jagged, _from bites_ , she realizes.

 

The doctor turns to Belle, amid the moans from the dying soldier (from all the dying soldiers), “Do you see?” He whispers, “this is the end of our war.”

 

The thought, at first, strange and alarming, suddenly seems far more kind. “I understand.”

 

The doctor nods, and turns to his work. Subtly, he slips a few drops into a waterskin beside the cot, and brings it to the lips of what was left to the soldier. It takes only seconds.

 

Belle has no idea why, but tears collect in the corner of her eyes.

 

Listening for breath and perfunctorily checking for a pulse, the doctor brings the scrap of a blanket over the man’s face, before taking her by the wrist and leading her back out into the hot day. When he moves to drop her wrist, Belle grabs his own, “Wait, I want it, the—.”

 

“ _Quiet_ ,” he moves his hand in front of her mouth, “discretion, if you would be so kind.” He looks to the hand on his wrist. “A ring I think, small and discrete.” He moves closer, taking her hand into his, “with a latch.” Slipping the ring on her finger off, he adds, “This should work well enough.”

 

She nods, “When?”

 

“Tonight, after dark.”

 

She nods, the deal struck.

 

* * *

 

Rumpelstiltskin sleeps overlong. Belle had stayed with him until the candles burned quite low, but he had continued reading—attempting to read—after she had left until the fire burned low as well. He had drifted off, his head, lolling, the tome in his hands slipping to his lap.

 

“Papa,” Rumpelstiltskin jolts, as Bae calls to him.

 

“Gods, Bae,” he groans, “’Tis early yet, give your poor papa time to awaken.”

 

“Early?” Baelfire scratches his head. “It’s not early.” He looks around, “Where’s Belle?”

 

Indeed, Rumpelstiltskin looks at the bright sun. The day was later than he had thought. Rolling his sore neck, rubbing his hands down his face. “Share my thanks with the maid for awaking me,” he quips.

 

Baelfire races outside, neglecting to even change his nightclothes or put on his boots, yelling out for their maid. His father chuckles, stretching his tired bones, “That boy.” He stands, closes and stacks his book, regretting their late night.

 

Water—he’d feel better with a wash. Then perhaps he could try to spin more straw into gold. He crosses their home, the floorboards creaking. He liked the sound, he liked knowing the wood of their home was fine and smooth. Feeling an unexpected bit of pride, the spinner smiles to himself, reaching his hand into the smooth water jug.

 

Stunned, he freezes, his hands coming up dry. He leans over it and finds the water standing low, low as it had been evening last. He looks at the hearth—the coals gone long since cold. For the first time, he feels uneasy.

 

Bae bursts back into their home, “I can’t find her. Maybe she went to town?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin frowns, “I very much doubt that.” Grumbling, he goes to the door, taking up his cloak.

 

The boy tilts his head, “Then she must be at Saorla’s—I can go and see—“

 

He grabs Baelfire by the back of his shirt, “Now, now, not so fast, Bae.” His son gives him a strange look, and the spinner has no idea how to explain that he has the strangest feeling that she may be keeping a corpse for company. He improvises, “I’m faster, son.”

 

The boy nods, appeased.

 

Rumpelstiltskin swallows, holding his son by the shoulder. “Stay here, Bae.” With a puff of smoke, he disappears to see what has happened to their maid.

 

* * *

 

As a child, Belle dreamt of adventure, of daring knights and magical solutions, of riddles of wit and societies of secret wisdom. She dreamt that women—very, very special women—could be heroes, could be brave and daring as those handsome knights whose faces were obscured and distant (for though they featured in her dreams, they _did not_ narrate). She dared to dream that her thread of fate be tangled down the spool with the stuff of greatness.

 

Then she grew and learnt that dreams and threads and greatness were all tangles, all messes and those knights did great and terrible things and that women—even very, very special women (oft them especially)—were not meant for stories filled with the stuff of greatness, not in a land such as hers.

 

Women were not heroes, (no one was) and in any case, Belle did not desire greatness, nor glory, nor adventure. She desired sleep and rest. Calm and repose. Of course, those were not the stuff with which her thread be tangled neither. Her threads dripped blood and dust; embroidered through with bitterness and age and scars.

 

She does not hear the footsteps approaching, nor the door opening, but finally, she hears the voice of resignation, “So, he’s dead.”

 

The voice is distant. Belle does not move, from where she kneels on the group, as if thousands of threads tie her wrists to her knees and both to the ground. She can hear though, the steps on the dirt floor of the hovel. The grinding of the gritty earth echoes in her ears—it hurts. She wishes it would stop.

 

“I am sorry—I thought,” the words are slow, incredibly slow, as Rumpelstilskin looks at the body, “I thought there was more time.”

 

This at last, shakes her. “There was more time,” she croaks, “but he did not want it.” Belle reaches a hand forward, toward Maurice’s body on the ground, but it’s too far to touch, and she’s too heavy to push any further forward. She runs her fingers across the dirt, crushing it, as it slips back down.

 

“Lass, we have to move him.”

 

She feels the warmth then, of the day, too close to noon. “Rumpelstiltskin?” she asks.

 

“Aye, dearie.” He moves toward her, slipping a hand under her arm.

 

“No— _no_ ,” she pulls back against him. “I won’t leave him!” Stronger than she looks—stronger than her meager food and rest should allow. She scrambles along the ground, away from him—and into Maurice. Turning her head, Belle screams.

 

“Enough,” sighing, he hauls her up and out of the poor excuse for a house. Amidst her kicks and screams and cries for the father, he shakes her, “The man is gone. He’s gone, Belle.”

 

That rouses her, wide eyed and panting heavily, “He’s gone.” Her eyes are wide, wide and glassy, “I’ll never see him again.”

 

“Aye, dearie.” When her breath evens and she has gone quiet, the Dark One thinks over what is to be done. He waits, but her calm appears to have returned, taking with it her wild outburst. Her head moves not, not to the house, nor to the chirps of summer birds nor rustle of green leaves.

 

They breathe together there, in the clearing about the hovel. He feels quite damp inside his dark cloak. The heat of summer beads along her forehead, but she lets it roll and drop, caressing her face. She is a world away, and Rumpelstiltskin needs do what he must.

 

With little flourish, a heavy hand barely raised, they are inside his cottage.

 

As the smoke slips away, he grasps her arms should she return to histrionics, but she focuses on something far away, something he cannot see.

 

Gently he walks her backward, seating her upon his bed. Kneeling before her, he unwraps a fisted hand from her skirts, turning it palm-side up, and checks her pulse (steady, surprisingly so). Frowning, he waves a hand before her face—her gaze remains fixed. Sighing he stands, a little surprised at his own dexterity (even the Dark One forgets himself from time to time).

 

He steps outside, darting his eyes from the house to the grounds—he hopes he won’t have to call, but luck’s not been on their side this day (nor ever, really).

 

“Bae?” the words spoken barely above his normal tone, bring the boy with his pig’s bladder ball from ‘round the corner.

 

“Papa! Is everything—“

 

“Quiet, son,” he stops him from running up, with a lifted hand. “Hush now.”

 

Baelfire offers a confused glance, with slow and steady steps, “Papa?”

 

“My boy, I needs off to town, but,” he falters, unsure what to speak and what to hold, “but I need your help.” The child gives him a strange—and eager—look. “Belle is feeling ill—“

 

“Is she—“

 

“She is—she _will be_ fine, but right now, she needs rest. I need _you_ to stay and watch over her while I’m gone.” Lifting a hand to his son’s cheek, Rumpelstiltskin asks, “Can you do that for me, Bae?”

 

“Aye, of course, papa.”

 

“Good, now, do not speak with her, she’s… unwell. Just sit here, by the door. She mustn’t run off.”

 

“Alright,” the boy speaks hesitantly, confused as to the task.

 

“That’s my brave son. I’ll be back before you know it.”

 

Naturally, he does not bother with walking, appearing on the edge of town. The quiet village was as lively as it ever becomes, the hour only a touch past noon. He walks with purpose to his mark, a singular shop, with no customers. The structure itself spoke of better days, with a fine roof and strong, oaken beams. There was a time when this shop did best of any in the village. Frowning, Rumpelstiltskin walks inside, “Hello?” When none answer, he calls, impatient, “Anyone care for coin today?”

 

Farther back, wood clatters, and a dark-haired man wearing an apron emerges. The man starts when he realizes the would-be customer is the Dark One, “Spin—sir?” Wiping his hands, looking side-to-side at his wares, “what need have you for a coffin?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin sighs again, “Ennis, ‘twasn’t it?”

 

“Aye,” the coffinmaker nods, looking him in the eye.

 

“Well then, _Ennis_ , what would I be doing here, if I had no need?”

 

“Well—yes, that is—what kind are you looking to purchase?” The walls are covered with caskets, every shape and size, all types of shapes and woods. Some are stacked atop others.

 

Little business burying the dead when a war’s finally come to an end.

 

“Something stout. Wide and light, I think.”

 

Ennis sighs, “the lunatic father?”

 

Frowning, Rumpelstiltskin agrees, “Aye, the girl’s father.”

 

The carpenter walks past him to a simple coffin in the back corner of the shop. “This should do, ‘bout the right size, I think. Briar wood and a fair color.”

 

Moving forward to inspect the coffin, he runs a glittering hand over the fine carving, “Lacquered too,” turning to Ennis, the Dark One cannot resist the temptation, “more time on your hands these days, eh, casketmaker?”

 

His jaw clenches, “Do not imagine I wish for the days when I could barely build them fast enough to bury children inside of them. Unfinished, with little holding them together.”

 

Surprised, he tilts his head, “So your table has not felt the loss?”

 

“I didn’t say that, but I would burn all these coffins ‘afore I wished any more children to die.” Turning back to the piece, he asks, “Do you want it or not?”

 

Blinking, Rumpelstiltskin hands him a pouch of coin, without asking the price. He does not care—he suddenly wants to be out of this shop and away from this man.

 

“But this is too—“

 

Before Ennis can finish, he and the coffin are gone.

 

* * *

 

Baelfire is hot.

 

He bounces his ball, sitting on his haunches in front of the door to his home, but the ball keeps rolling out from under him, and what’s more, he’s not heard a sound from inside the house for all the time his papa has been gone.

 

Strange that.

 

His chin tilts toward the house, and the ball rolls away from his hands again. Perhaps, he ought to check on Belle. He’s not heard a sound after all. Perhaps she’s sicker than his papa knew. Perhaps Baelfire needed to save her.

 

Yes, standing, he knows he must go inside. Papa would understand.

 

(And if she’s asleep, papa need not know he poked his head inside, only for a quick check).

 

The door creaks as it always does. Bae can see Belle sitting on his father’s bed—but she should be resting. “Belle?” he whispers. She doesn’t move. Crossing the room, the little boy takes her hand, “ _Belle?_ ”

 

She moves not. She speaks not.

 

The strangeness to the moment only frightens the boy a little. Slowly he walks over beside his friend and gently sits beside her. “’Tis alright, Belle. I’ll—I’ll keep you safe.” Leaning against her, holding her hand, her listens to her slow breathing and waits for his father.

 

* * *

 

Rumpelstiltskin makes quick work of the messy business, and with a few flicks of the wrist, the inventor lay in his lacquered coffin, in a hole in the ground behind Old Saorla’s place. He waves his hand, adding the lid and spreading the dirt. He feels little—death was inevitable, even without war, but clasping his hands in front of himself, he lowers his head, commending the corpse to the ground, “I will keep my vow. I’ll do no wrong to your girl.” Briefly Rumpelstiltskin regrets burying the man without his daughter. Perhaps he’s muddling the traditions of where they are from to the south?

 

Shaking the thoughts, he turns to go—the day is sweltering, he could not leave the body to rot and she had hardly been in a state to attend to the task. With nothing else to be done, he magics himself back to the house, but seeing the open door and no Baelfire to be seen, he growls and hurries inside, “Bae?”

 

Entering the house, he finds them sitting together, his son’s eyes full and fearful but the girl stiff as stone. The fear that she had lost her mind, possibly hurting his son was too much for the old spinner—but his boy was safe, and the father’s heart pound from the misplaced fear, “Oh, Bae.” He walks to them, running a hand through his son’s hair. “I told you to stay outside.”

 

“What happened to Belle?”

 

Kneeling down, Rumpelstiltskin takes the boy’s hand into his own, “Son—“

 

Belle speaks instead, her voice unlike her voice, a flat line of tone, “Maurice is dead.”

 

Her master cringes, wishing the boy spared from such a way to find out, but his son’s sweet heart feels not for the occasional friend and teacher that the mad inventor had been, but for the maid he had come to love as family. Baelfire wraps his arms around Belle, crying, “Belle I’m so sorry.”

 

She does not move.

 

Frowning, the father extracts his son from the girl, “Bae, why don’t you go and fetch Belle some fresh water. We’ve hardly any in the house”

 

The boy latches onto the task, running to the hearth to grab the water buckets. Racing out the door, Rumpelstiltskin knows he has bought them some time to speak frankly. Without knowing any better way to speak of the dead, he simply tells her, “I took care of it.”

 

Surprisingly focused, she looks at him, “It’s good she’s dead.”

 

His brow wrinkles—the lass had lost her wits after all, “Who?”

 

“My mother. It would have killed her to see him like that.”

 

“Ah, the madness.” Indeed, much of what he remembered of his father he would have been better off not seeing (but that was love—seeing your loves at their worst).

 

“And me,” she adds simply.

 

“What of you?” he asks, not convinced she knew of what she spoke.

 

“Me?” she laughs a little, “Yes, I should be dead too I suppose.”

 

“No, that’s not what I meant.” He sighs, impatient, “Did it, did it hurt to see the—Maurice?”

 

She laughs in earnest then, “Oh, no—takes tougher stuff to kill me.” Her laugh is bitter and sharp and old (and Rumpelstiltskin wonders at her war scars). Looking down at her hand, where a ring sits, Belle adds, “but it killed him straight away.”

 

“What are you talking about, girl?” he asks, annoyed and put out.

 

“I killed him.”

 

“You what?”

 

“My father—crazy, old Maurice—he asked for my poison and I gave it to him.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin runs a hand over his face—truly, she was mad. “You’re confused.”

 

“I’m not,” she shouts. Taking the ring off her hand, she stands, putting it before his face. “This was gift, during the war, the chance to die at the time of my deciding, and my father knew—he knew all along what I’d done and what I paid for.”

 

Grabbing her wrist, he takes the ring. “Where did you get this?” He had heard of such things—high treason, of course. He had only believed them to be rumor (and had searched them out on the front anyway).

 

She offers no answer, smiling sweetly, tears in her eyes, “What monster kills her own father?”

 

Then, Belle of the Southlands faints.

 

The dead weight of her, held only by the wrist in his hand—Rumpelstiltskin nearly drops her, but gathering her into his arms, he picks her up, a light thing, and puts her back in his bed (too shocked to do anything else).

 

He steps away, gathering the ring from the ground where it had fallen from her limp fingers. He snaps open the latch and turns it upside down, finding the hidden compartment empty.

 

She had not lied; looking over, Rumpelstiltskin stared at this final casualty of the Ogre Wars and his murderous maid.

 

* * *

 

Belle sleeps. She wakes when needs forced her from slumber, but father and son moved about the house quietly, living on edge, as the days passed and Belle refused to rise for more than a few moments.

 

Her refusal was silence. She could not be roused. Waiting had proved fruitless, so when days began to pass, the spinner shook her shoulder, but even to this, she offered no resistance nor acknowledgement.

 

She slept in full light and while Baelfire played outside. Curiosity shifted to concern. They knew not what to do—how to reach her.

 

Loath to think on her sins, Rumpelstiltskin instead thought to her tasks. ‘Twas strange how quickly he had forgotten how many items he had given over to the maid. Cooking, cleaning, the shopping and animal care. The weeds heard tell of her despair and spread like wildfire in her precious garden. Baelfire grew quiet and strange.

 

He would give it two more days before he forced the issue, the father decided, late one night, five days from the inventor’s death. Sitting beside his bed and his maid, enough time had passed that he was irritated with her constant presence in his home (taking up his bed), but despite this, once again, he crawled up the ladder to sleep next to his son for another night.

 

* * *

 

When Rumpelstiltskin tells him, Baelfire, for the first, feels rather scared, “But papa, why do you have to go now?”

 

“I don’t want to son, but I must.” Indeed, he had gathered another possible lead on the pirate ship, and he could hardly let another chance slip past him as he had in Padirac—not that he could tell that to Bae. “’Tis only a quick trip, son.”

 

“But Belle…” the boy’s words slip off, as he chances a look to the bed in the corner. She had nary moved over the past week. She barely drank and hardly ate. She slept, and they waited. She slept, and they worried.

 

“Oh, son, she’s not going nowhere. Sit with her, watch over her, give her water and what food she accepts. I will return quickly.” Taking Baelfire’s chin into his hand, he adds, “I know you can do it, my boy.”

 

The son nods and slips upstairs for bed, as Rumpelstiltskin continues to prepare to leave (knowing that he could sense any harm that might come to his son). He wishes his confidence stood as sure as his words had been. Like Bae, he was worried. The maid seemed quite lost, cursed even.

 

He had been little better when his own father had left him.

 

Time, Rumpelstiltskin told himself. In time, she would rise and return to normal. She had to. That was the only possibility he let himself entertain. Dropping his bag by the door, he sits beside her in the chair he dragged to the bed from his desk days ago.

 

In his thoughtlessness, he’d put Belle on his own bed. He had never imagined she would continue to occupy it past that afternoon while he buried her father. He stared at her, only her shoulders and smart, white cap visible with her back to him.

 

His annoying little maid.

 

She frustrated him and smarted under his orders. She defied and disagreed with him, but true enough, he liked her. If there was anything that these past days had made Rumpelstiltskin admit to even himself, it was that fact that he liked her. The house was different when she bustled about to and fro, but the heavy air that had fallen upon them after the death of Maurice had him on edge.

 

He very much wished her better, and yet, try as he might, a return of her energies and life, was like to also bring her imminent departure.

 

Rumpelstiltskin just knew it. Without the old man tying her down, she was free to run from her past—run from them. They could hardly keep her, and Rumpelstiltskin knew that (much as he did not desire to think on it).

 

The sooner she awoke, the sooner she left, taking the happy running of their house with her. There was nothing to keep her there, where every day was like the one before, where her pay was meager and his manners even less.

 

Bae would be heartbroken.

 

 _He may leave too_ , Zoso spat.

 

Rumpelstiltskin dropped his head to his hands, tugging on his hair. _No_ , his boy wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave him.

 

 _You could make her stay_ , the Dark One suggested.

 

Rumpelstiltskin had not the faintest idea as to how. Shaking his head, he stands. He had a journey to make (and Belle slept on).

 

* * *

 

Belle, surprisingly, is awake when the children slip inside. She has done her best to ignore the boy, Baelfire choosing to sit at her bedside in the intervals between wakefulness and sleep. Sometimes he speaks to her, sometimes he reads to her. Sometimes it is day. Sometimes it is night.

 

Belle sleeps on.

 

However, today, they are a little louder than usual. What’s more Bae is not alone.

 

“She sleeps all the time now.”

 

“Can I see?”

 

“I shouldn’t—“

 

“Please, Baelfire?” It’s Morraine, Belle realizes.

 

“Well, I guess—just for a minute.” She can hear the children opening the door; she doesn’t roll over.

 

“Your papa can’t heal her?”

 

“She’s not sick,” Baelfire whispers, “at least, I don’t think she’s sick. I think she’s sad for her father.”

 

“Oh,” the girl says, “the inventor.” Quiet a moment, she adds, “Baelfire, I can sit with her. You should see to the sheep.”

 

“Thank you, Morraine, I hate to leave Belle alone.”

 

 _Please do_ , Belle thinks.

 

“’Tis no matter, Bae.”

 

The boy hurries outside, shutting the door. Belle wills herself to sleep, but she can hear the girl, tall and slight, settling in the chair beside the bed. Minutes pass, and despite how much she wills it, the maid cannot fall back asleep.

 

“I know you’re awake.” Morraine says, ““I slept too, after the war. I couldn’t sleep at night. Do you have them too—the nightmares?”

 

Surprised, for the first in so long, Belle feels surprise. Turning over, she stares at the pretty girl, frowning. She does not speak—she’s no idea how.

 

_Yes, I do._

 

“I have them too.” Morraine waits, but the maid stays silent. “I will wait ‘till you’re asleep to go. That always helps me, having someone nearby.”

 

The words, though she hears them, feel so far away to Belle, but true enough, she closes her eyes and manages, at last, to go back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Belle sleeps. She sleeps, but this time she dreams.

 

She dreams of the war. She dreams of the doctor and Gaston. She dreams of Baelfire and Maurice. She dreams of her mother even, but most of all, she dreams of Rumpelstiltskin. The confusion of mottled skin gone, he looks like the spinner she met on the road, all those months ago.

 

He is less cruel in her dreams: “You must tell me what ails you, lest how am I to mend it?”

 

When she wakes up in the middle of the night, she cries.

 

* * *

 

It’s early light when Belle wakes up, and for the first time, when she steps outside to relieve herself, she finally _feels_ awake. Instead of turning back to the house, she looks to the stream. Truly, she could use a bath, for she’s no idea how long she’s stayed abed.

 

 _Rumpelstiltskin’s bed_.

 

That thought gives her pause as she strips off her clothes. She had worn her maid’s dress late, the night she had returned to her employer, so angry at his prognosis. She had worn it late into the night, building plans and hopes together with him for healing. She had worn it back to Saorla’s place, back to her father’s side. She had worn it when he died.

 

Belle stops herself, wading into the water—she can’t think about that. If she thinks on that she’ll return to bed, and she does not know if she could ever get out of it ever again.

 

Without soap, she runs her hands over her body, and holding her breath, wets her face and hair. She beats her clothes between two stones to wash out the grime. It feels good to move, though her arms cry out at the tiny movements—she’s grown weak, lazy even. Sighing, she rings out the clothes and her hair, walking to the clothesline. She pins up her drenched things to dry beside Baelfire and Rumpelstiltskin’s belongings. Grabbing a pair of pants, cut to the knee and a tunic, Belle dresses herself.

 

The clothing is only a little large for her, clearly her master’s. She smells them, the scent of the forest and dust coating them—the laundering has stopped with her convalescence, the line full since she’s been asleep. Shaking her head at the father and his boy—true enough, they had cooked and cared for the animals, in her absence, (and cared for her, what’s more) however, there had been little cleaning, clearly—it was time for her to get up.

 

They needed her.

 

“Now, is as good a time as any,” she shrugs and unpins the clothing from the line. Feeling her way, as much as seeing in the dark. She drapes it over her arms, slipping the wooden pins into the pocket of Rumpelstiltskin’s tunic, and returns to the house.

 

The palest gray of the pre-dawn had only just begun to shake the world awake, but it is quiet yet, Baelfire most certainly still asleep (and his father still gone—she had slept, but she knew that her employer was gone. She could feel it). Belle decides to sit on the front step to do her folding. It takes longer than expect, for there had been much on the line when she had forsaken her duties, and what’s more, she’s little energy to be spent.

 

When her stack is finished, she slips inside, setting it on Rumpelstiltskin’s work desk. Stretching, her back and neck, she feels spent again. It’s shameful, how little she’s done and how exhausted she feels. Looking between the clothes and her master’s bed, she decides to sleep. _Just once more,_ Belle promises herself.

 

Lying down, she slips back into slumber immediately, and surely ‘tis hours, but feels like an instant, when she awakens. Blinking, she sits up, her eyes adjusting to the bright morning. _Bright day_.

 

Instantly, she feels him. Rumpelstiltskin stands near, staring at the pile of clothes atop his desk.

 

“You look like hell,” the words slip out of her mouth before she can stop them.

 

Startled, he turns to her, “You’re awake.”

 

Blood colors her cheeks—she had neglected her work for days upon days. Perhaps she had even gone mad. “Aye, I’m awake.”

 

“And did you…” he points to the clothes.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Well, you at least, are looking better—“ he stops, stepping closer, “is that my shirt?”

 

“Oh, yes,” she grabs at the low neck, “I—I had nothing else, and well, needed to wash my dress. I’m sorry, it’s probably close to dry by now—“

 

Holding up his hands, he stops her, “I don’t care about that.”

 

Frowning, she asks him (because she cannot begin to understand what to make of the look in his strange eyes), “But why? I’ve been _worthless_ for who knows how long—”

 

“Stop. Stop worrying about that. I’m just glad you’re awake again.”

 

She nods, and he rubs his hands down his worn and ugly face—she’d meant what she’d said: he looked terrible. She said as much, “You look tired.”

 

“You don’t look that well yourself,” his sharp expression softens when he looks at her, “I’ve not slept in days, I expect I do look worse—well, worse for me.” Sighing he walks over to his corner, pulling a blanket from the shelf beside the bed, "I’ll sleep on the hearth.”

 

He turns to go, but Belle catches his wrist. Her eyes move from his face to his wrist, “You need not sleep on the stones.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin starts to pull back, but she holds him fast, “What are you asking me?”

 

Her words are simple, hardly bawdy, hardly even hopeful, “To sleep.” She does not have him, this strange man and coward, frozen in his steps by a stupid girl—a poor fool and murder—she shan’t push any harder, or he could shatter.

 

They both could. “Come to bed. I’m tired, aren’t you tired?”

 

Mouth agape, eyes wide, a scoff leaves him and he nods, “Aye, I’m tired.” He truly was so very tired.

 

Scooting back, she lifts the blankets, “There’s room enough. Sleep comes easier in a big bed.”

 

Swallowing, he slips off his boots and cloak, draping them on the end of the bed. He slips in beside her, slowly. Hesitant, she sidles up to him, and with nowhere else to put his arms, he wraps them about her. Holding his breath, he listens to hers even out, her head on his chest.

 

 _I will never fall asleep like this_ , Rumpelstiltskin thinks, just before he slips away.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for this chapter, description of dubcon, not Belle/Rum 
> 
> Fyi, 17K+

Belle wakes up first. Her heartbeat quickens—she had slept beside the Dark One, and what’s more, she had invited him. Holding her breath, she listens, but Rumpelstiltskin sleeps on, his own breathing catching in his throat. Her lips quirk upward—a smile threatening at the sound of the little snores from her employer. He always pretended to ferocity, but here, he seemed quite human. She swallows such things back down.

 

Her hand rests on his chest, atop his heart. Running her fingers lightly over the spot, she feels the rich brocade vest he wears, the fine threads feeling so grand under the pads of her fingers. Even her borrowed-tunic feels soft about her arms and chest. At that moment, Belle recalls she’s no undergarments beneath his stolen clothes, her cheeks coloring at the remembrance.

 

Her eyes slip over the lines of his form. It would be so simple, she thinks, face and neck hot, feeling each of his even breaths lift her slightly only to fall on his exhale. It would be so very simple to wake him.

 

She wonders over the man. She remembers (but only just) his form, the first day they had met, dark eyes and dirty hair, wrapped in rags as she. The boy had his bright eyes, but little else. She wonders over Baelfire’s mother. What had she looked like, that other half of her master’s child? What kind of woman would entice Rumpelstiltskin to marriage? A pretty thing, surely, if Bae’s sweet nose was anything by which to judge. Her own mother had been soft, but to the point—the voice of reason in their home, amid their father’s latest dreams and schemes. It had been a balance.

 

This house however…

 

At every turn the man beneath her rose in defense of himself. What balance had been struck in the days of his marital felicity? ‘Mayhaps a kind woman, but more like a harpy, Belle imagines. Quite the pair they must have made, she nearly snickers. Quick to anger and slow to apologize—full of pride (and little love, perhaps?) and little else to warm their bellies. It would have made for a loud, tense heap of a home.

 

However, the little boy felt none of the effects of any such domestic disharmony, thank the gods. Thoughts of Master Baelfire give her pause—lying abed mid-day with the father. With the fine house so quiet—too quiet— _where was Baelfire_ —they shouldn’t stay like this. Would he catch them? Frowning, she imagines perhaps the boy already had. She tenses, knowing not quite how to move, how to wake her master, but the shift in her body or breathing does the dreaded work for her.

 

Rumpelstiltskin awakens.

 

Belle knows the minute he realizes where he is and who he sleeps ‘aside. He goes rigid. He does not move, his breathing pulling to a halt.

 

Swallowing, Belle tilts her chin upward. She can’t look at him, only the stiff lines of his mottled neck can she manage. If he weren’t so ugly, he’d be near beautiful, all scaled and untouchable. Holding herself as still as possible excepting her hand, she slowly—ever so slowly—traces the line from his heart, up his shoulder and down, down, down his arm, to pluck at his fingers. Daring, she takes his hand into her own.

 

He gasps. She does not stop.

 

Clasping it, she feels quite heady with the touch. She slips her fingers alongside his own, pulling the hand closer to her view. She sighs, noticing just how dirty they are. “There’s blood under your nails,” she speaks the words casually, near-silently, eyeing his long, strange fingernails (what’s more, she feels little surprise).

 

The moment breaks.

 

Huffing through his nose, He tugs his hand away, but Belle holds fast, not letting go, “You need not hide from me.” She thumbs at his thick, black nails, toying with their pointed tips. There is no rush to her movements, unhurried and determined, “’Tisn’t it a funny thing, Rumpelstiltskin, that you should know all my secrets, and I, none of yours?” The question is distant, and she hears the words as if spoken far away (and suddenly, Belle feels a wave of tiredness).

 

These words, these whispers, still him.

 

He had awaken to his secret dream. This touch, _her touch_ , was like every one of his fantasies—yet so _unlike_. She, not he, had grabbed his wrist—the mirrored reverse of his imaginings. Gruff and dry comes his answer, “My secrets are best kept hidden, dearie.”

 

Now, she does shift, moving to dare look him in the eye. Staring, Belle thinks of his arms, she thinks of the scrape she suffered at his hands and the shaking. She thinks of the hidden, bloodied-shirts. She thinks of Bae and she thinks of the time the spinner checked her blind stitches. She thinks of gold string and smoke and the riverbed. The man is self-indulgent and prone to pity, but so is she—they cannot stay in this moment, and there are only two paths forward, forgetting or forging. She has cleaned blood from linen for him, and kept his secret, what’s more. She’s no intent to harm him (but that’s not always the key to the matter).

 

She dares to fathom the chance—holding it in her mind, how simple it would be to slip her hand between his legs, move the two of them down this new path, to take control of the moment.

 

She could do the brave thing, take the turn, perhaps bravery would follow.

 

She was no maiden, but this time it felt strange, the stillness to their touch—this time she felt the oddest sense of _pull_ , the sense to roll atop this strange creature, aye, but also to catch his lips with her own. She felt the desire, even, to wait for him to brush against her. “Rumpelstiltskin?” she whispers.

 

“Yes?”

 

The words slip from her mouth before she can stop them (before she can understand quite why she cares to know his answer): “Would you have me?”

 

A gasp— _a hiss_ —and the man does not speak. Two beats, but all she can hear is the roar of her pulse in her own ears. After ages, he offers, “Aye, I would have you.”

 

Belle had not the faintest notion of what comes next.

 

She slips upward, onto her elbow, the movement bringing their faces close, sharing the same stale, humid air. The dust motes and speckles of his skin reflect the noonday light (even his mottled eyes with their bloodshot corners). He looks like an animal, afraid and on edge, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

 

Surely, she must look the same.

 

The moment breaks—when the window shatters. They jump apart. Rumpelstiltskin jumps so high, he falls off the bed, straight to the ground with a loud _thud_.

 

“Are you alright?” Belle asks. She scoots to the edge of the bed, looking down at him. “What was that?”

 

A strange sound, like little echoes, turns their heads: Baelfire’s ball slowly jump-rolls away from the broken window, bouncing against a wall, slowly inching toward Rumpelstiltskin on the floor.

 

“ _Sorry!”_ their boy’s shout carries from outside.

 

“Godsbedamned, _Bae_ ,” his father grumbles. “Now don’t you be running off!” he shouts. Standing, he takes up the ball and moves to the broken window, assessing the damage. Glass was strewn about, even a few leadlight strips scatter the ground. He grumbles, holding up the pig’s bladder ball and looking out the window at his sheepish boy. “Now, what have I said about playing too close to the house?”

 

“Not to do it—“ the boy begins, “but you’re back.” There’s an impish smile in the corner of his mouth.

 

Rumpelstiltskin melts. Sighing, the father works to push back, “Aye, I’m back, but you know better’an to be kicking this near the windows.” He gives the ball a little shake.

 

“Aye, papa,” The rueful smile slips back up, undeterred, “but you can fix it, can’t you?”

 

 _Now,_ his boy wanted magic. Frowning, he raises an eyebrow, “’Tisn’t the point, _Bae_.”

 

“But you _can_ do it?” the adolescent presses.

 

Then, the father smiles too. He tosses the ball toward his son and begins to raise his hand up to fix the window, but Baelfire stops him, “I’m glad you’re back, papa.”

 

“Me too, son.” With the twinkling sound of chimes, the latticework and glass repair back together again. Alone once more, he grumbles, returning ‘round the corner, “That boy’ll be the death of me.” However, he truly is alone: the bed is empty and the maid is gone.

 

* * *

 

Belle goes to him at nightfall. Slipping through the camp, along the soldiers’ tents, her heart pounds inside her chest. She wears a dark cloak, Gaston’s ‘o course, for she’s no other to wear. The heat of the day has not relaxed, but the damp, tepid air only risen further about them all. It surrounds her, through her clothes, stifling and inescapable.

 

Reaching the entrance to the doctor’s tent, Belle stops, and swallowing, she searches for her courage. Closing her eyes, she works to calm herself, but it wasn’t every day one committed high treason.

 

The flaps open, “What are you doing?” The harsh whisper, so quiet and sharp, makes Belle jump. “Get inside, before someone takes notice.” He grasps her arm and brings her into his tent.

 

She wonders at his words, at his fear—had not he offered protection from the dangers of the men’s camp?

 

“Come into the light,” he orders, letting go of her arm and crossing toward his work table and single chair, “see what I’ve done with your ring.”

 

She moves beside him as he holds up Gaston’s ring for her inspection. True enough, he has fashioned the small gem and metal setting alongside a latch and miniscule compartment. The size is so insignificant that no one would take notice of the changes to the trinket.

 

So insignificant that with but a sleight of the hand, death could slip past the heat of battle, straight to the heart.

 

He opens it most gently, showing her the precious few drops of liquid inside. “What do you think?” he asks, smiling.

 

She cannot fathom how he convinced a blacksmith to do this in so short a time, but he has. A man of knowledge and science, he is proud of his work, Belle thinks, and what’s more, of the wager he has made. She gives him the answer he craves, “It’s perfect.”

 

“Indeed, no one could know.” Closing the clasp, he slips the ring onto her finger, and running his thumb over her knuckles, admires his own work (Belle tries and fails not to think of the last time a man slipped this ring onto her finger. She tries not to think of what Gaston would say if he could see her now). “When shall you do it?” he asks the dark question, toying with the metal hinge. He does not open it.

 

“When I must.” At Belle’s words, the doctor catches her eye. She’s no idea what he finds there, but she sees steadiness (and perhaps resignation too) looking back in his.

 

“Well then, let us use the time we have most wisely.” Dropping her hand and licking his forefinger and thumb, he snuffs out the only candle in the tent with a pinch, and darkness overtakes them.

 

As Belle’s eyes adjust to the change, she feels rather than sees his hands at the strings beginning at the top of her corset. Stepping back, she holds up her own, “Wait. I—I don’t even know your name.”

 

He gives only the faintest of a chuckle, hardly a breath, “Victor, my name is Victor Baleine.”

 

“Victor.”

 

“Yes, or Doctor Baleine, whichever you prefer.” Maybe she imagines it, but she almost hears a preference for the latter in his words. “And you are Belle of the Southlands.” He steps to her again, tugging at her laces.

 

A second time, Belle moves a hand to his wrist, “Wait.”

 

“There’s no need to be nervous, girl.”

 

“I’m not nervous,” she snips, defensive, “It’s only, I don’t—I don’t want to come with child.” Admitting the fear, suddenly feels strange, and hardly grown, but she could not go further without reckoning with it.

 

“Ah,” the doctor chuckles and with little swagger tells her, “You won’t, but if you were to come with child, I could take care of that—the benefits of modern medicine, as they say.”

 

Frowning, she nods though he can hardly see her in the dark, though she does not understand his words, but because he spoke them with such a finality—and what was she to do, in questioning the good doctor? She wants his end of the bargain as much as he wants hers.

 

(Perhaps even more).

 

Belle had always been quite good at racing toward what she wanted (she had also been quite good at getting into trouble, stuck up trees, caught in towers and book rooms, and playing when she ought to have been laundering). She hardly ever looked back on her decisions, at least before the death of her mother, but ever since she has grown prone to worry and bouts of indecision. Even now, after sure words and walking all this way, she stands rather unsure of the price she is determined to pay for her poison.

 

Best, she thinks, to race on.

 

She pushes with more force than necessary, the simple vest from his shoulders (and truly, it does still his hands a moment from unlacing her simple gown). Next, she tugs on his shirt, pulling it over his head and tossing it to the floor. Her corset takes longer, but between the two of them, she stands in little else but a petticoat and her well-worn boots in mere moments.

 

Moving her backward, he kisses her, unexpectedly before setting her down on his cot. He tastes of mead and spices—decidedly unlike the super served by the camp cook. _So, along with clean water, he takes different food,_ Belle thinks. She wonders if that may come with the ring and bedding as well. He does not taste ill, but she is clumsy in their kiss. It is different from Gaston, though not from lack of practice, as she imagines it had been for her youthful beau, and when he palms her breast, she briefly wonders what she ought to do with her own hands. Pressing her back against the bed, he toes off his boots, each one dropping to the dirt with a thud. Hearing, Belle makes to mimicry, but the last she can’t quite kick off the cot, and she feels it beside her foot, dirtying the bed.

 

Without bothering to remove her underskirts, he slips his hand between her legs. Though Belle knew to expect this, she does indeed jump. Gaston and she had not gotten so far as this during their clumsy fumbles. Wet kisses, harried caresses, but not this. “Damn,” the doctor—Victor—says dropping his head, “You’re dry.” He pulls away.

 

“What?” Belle sits up, “what did I do?”

 

“Easy now,” he holds his hand up, silencing her. She can barely see it, in the darkened tent, but it is there. He rummages through a chest with tiny bottles, for though Belle cannot see in the dark, she can hear them, clinking together. So too can she hear him uncork a bottle and then rub his hands together—rubbing something on his hands.

 

She tilts her head, “What are you doing?”

 

“Oil to smooth the way,” he quickly replies, and she can hear him too, slip off his pants and rub the same concoction on himself. She can hear him touching skin elsewhere.

 

_There._

 

She blushes at the turn of phrase and the sound, but when he moves atop her once again, his fingers press against her with more ease. And then he’s there, hard and pressing. It does not hurt, not exactly, but she turns her head from his kiss, gasping all the same, because it is strange and not quite comfortable—and then he is inside her.

 

There is pain, but not howling—she feels hollow, in her heart and elsewhere. It is not a moment—the maids in town had always said the first time it would be but a moment—but as he rocks to and fro, it is tolerable, in moments, perhaps even pleasant.

 

Indeed, it is not a moment, and Belle still knows not what to do with her hands. Finally, resting them on his back, she waits as he shifts above her, huffing and panting. She wonders over the gearshift in the war machine, she imagines a smaller bolt would do better. She wonders at Gaston, what this might have been like with him. She thinks of her home. She thinks of the outcropping tower.

 

Sighing, she thinks she should very much like to sleep now.

 

The doctor’s voice rises only a touch, the pace changing, and then his weight is on her fully and he is breathing heavy. After a few moments he rolls off to lie beside her.

 

“Was—was that it?” she asks him.

 

Chuckling lightly, the doctor turns to her, “Unless you’re waiting for the second coming of Only Host, then indeed, that ‘twas it.” He scoffs, “Not exactly the best reception I have ever had.” She nods, not knowing what else to say, and rolls to get up, but his hand on her arm stops her. She can feel it, hot over her skin, over the gooseflesh and raised hairs there. “Where are you going?”

 

“My tent?”

 

“Oh no, this time you will certainly be seen. Sleep here. I promise to get you back before first light.” Nodding, though he can’t possible see her, she lies back down, mind racing. She shall never sleep (never sleep again), but somehow, she does.

 

The next morning, she is sore, with a ring about her finger and her fate in her hands.

 

* * *

 

When she returns, the maid wears her own clothes, even her prim and white little cap. Rumpelstiltskin chances a glance in her direction, from where he sits in his bed. She is a little wrinkled, but seemingly no worse for wear. He could hardly imagine this to be the same woman who stole his bed for seven days and nights.

 

Nor, the one who invited him back into it.

 

She drags two, full water buckets with her, and not bothering to shut the door, she takes them to the hearth, refilling the jar there. Rumpelstiltskin glares at her back. The bed had smelt of her, and though exhausted, he could not fall back to sleep after Baelfire’s broken window escapade. He wonders briefly if her clothes are still damp. As she mills about, stoking the fire, gathering soiled dishes, he wonders if perhaps he had dreamed it up, after all.

 

“So—how was your trip?” her words come out stilted and awkward.

 

Ah, he had not been dreaming; she’s embarrassed. Chuckling, with a hand to his mouth, he indulges himself, “I must say, I’m surprised you noticed my being gone what with your little, how shall we say, bout of madness?”

 

That hits its mark, the rigid line of her back freezing, “I am sorry.” Standing, she turns to look at him. She can just barely see him from her vantage point at the dining table. Obscured by the shadow of the door, she cannot make out his face, but his skin shines as ever. “I don’t know what came over me.”

 

The words, Rumpelstiltskin suddenly realizes could mean quite many a thing, “You don’t know what came over you?” He stands, a finger pointed at her, “You’re foolhardy and near-mad yourself—“

 

She sets the stack of stone and clay bowls down on the table, they clang against one another nicely, “Twice now you’ve called me mad—don’t do it again.”

 

Crossing over to the table he leans forward just a touch to look her in the eye, “Are you threatening me?”

 

“No, but I am telling.” She can feel her hands shaking. The words had slipped out and she had not the energies to retract them now. She doesn’t understand, her mind easing back into life, but slowly, looking at his ragged face, she wagers a guess, “You’re angry at me?”

 

“Aye, I am. You scared my boy half to death himself, you did.”

 

“ _You_ brought me here,” Belle near-on yells, but chancing a look at the open door she lowers her voice, “you knew what I was like that day, and if you were so worried why did you leave Bae here with me?”

 

Banging a hand on the table, he yells, “What else was I to do, mum? Leave you there with your dead father decaying on the ground?”

 

Looking away, Belle tugs at the roots of her hair, feeling what little peace she had found in waking this morning leaking away and her anger rising, “I told you what I was!” she cries out, holding up the ring on her hand in front of his face, “You knew what I was, so why did you care?” She is crying then, and when he does not answer, she asks him again, “Why do you care?”

 

“I—I don’t.” Shaking his head, he bats her hand out of his face. Grasping, he changes the subject, “Let’s not lie to one another, I’m under no delusions that this is anythin’ more than a temporary stop until you can plan for your next disappearing act, now that you’ve nothing to keep you here.”

 

The words sting far more than the slap to her hand, “Is that what you think of me?”

 

“Not think, dearie, _know,”_ the words are smug and cold, and Rumpelstiltskin crosses his arms over his chest.

 

Perhaps she is foolhardy. Perhaps she has gone a touch mad (or perhaps she meant what she had said that morning). Her next words are quiet, slow and easy to speak (but nearly a whisper), “But what if I’m not going any place?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin does not move. He does not breath. Stunned, his mouth finally drops, but no words come out.

 

Making up for lost time, Belle gathers up the bowls, slipping past her employer and out the open door, but on the threshold, she stops, turning back, a thought occurring to her, “Rumpelstiltskin, will you show me the grave?”

 

That, at least, he can accept. Without thought, two waves of his hand and the bowls stand on the ground and they behind Saorla’s drafty hovel.

 

She stumbles on the uneven ground and with the loss of the weight of the pots in her arms. His hand to her shoulder steadies her. “I didn’t mean now! You could have at least warned me.” He looks at her strangely. “What?” she asks.

 

“Just waiting for you to start screaming again.”

 

She shakes his hand from her shoulder, “He was my father.”

 

“Aye, and you poisoned him.” She opens her mouth to spew a retort, but he holds up a hand. “I’m not saying it ‘twasn’t a mercy.”

 

“He asked me.”

 

“So you said,” Rumpelstiltskin tilts his head, taking up her hand, flicking the empty ring open, “Now, where did you get something like this?”

 

She sneers just a little, “During the war.”

 

“Of course, but I want to know how. This,” he gives her hand a little shake, “or anything like, was only a legend. I know, because I searched for it.”

 

“No, you wouldn’t have found it, because it was made just for me.”

 

“How would you get something like that? High treason deserting the war, be it running, maiming or death.”

 

She tells him, because she has nothing left to lose, “I made a deal.”

 

“The clean water?”

 

“Yes, that too.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin drops her hand, “And who would risk their neck for you?”

 

“A benefactor.”

 

He laughs then, “Such folk rarely are as noble as they seem.”

 

“Oh, I learned that much,” she looks down at the ring on her finger, “but I got what I wanted.”

 

He feels that she hides something from him (she usually does), but he does not press, the talk of _benefactors_ putting him on guard. Not wishing to tempt the voice inside his head, he simply nods and points behind her, “There.”

 

“What?”

 

“The grave, dearie.” Turning, she sees the patch of unsettled dirt, where Maurice rests. She steps toward it, slowly, in three strides. Staring at her rumpled back he offers, “You could not have continued dragging him all about the world.”

 

He does not see the tears that Belle cannot hold back, “He said he was letting me go. He said he wanted to be with my mother again.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin frowns, he had heard that one before, and yet, this felt so very different from when his own father had let him go. He says the only thing he can: “What’s done is done.”

 

“I never thank you, for—for this.” She gestures to the upturned earth, “The grave looks very fine. My mother would have liked it,” Belle says, more to herself than he. She slowly kneels down, running her hand over the soft ground.

 

“And the old man?”

 

There’s a smile in her voice, “If mama liked it, it would have been well-enough for papa.” She traces lines in the dirt, “It’s my fault, all this time on the run: it made it so much worse.”

 

“Dearie, he was a sick man.”

 

“He could have had more.”

 

“We could all have more,” indeed, he wants so much more, but war and poverty make wanting such things impossible for most. “’Tisn’t the way the world works.”

 

“He wasn’t always mad.”

 

“I know,” Rumpelstiltskin says, though he had wondered after that very question, but his last talk with the man had given him a glimpse of the inventor’s sanity—and intellect. “War is hell.”

 

“Yes,” she agrees, and falls silent.

 

The Dark One knows the life of the inventor’s pretty and poor daughter had never been destined for greatness. The best she could have hoped for was to leverage her looks into a better marriage with a merchantman, care for her parents into their old age, and birth children enough to survive infancy and carry on the family’s shop in town. Instead, her father had gotten her entangled in a fool’s war, and she had narrowly chased death only to escape it time and again with ignominy, infamy and steadily, obscurity. She was the strangest creature he had ever met. She was inscrutable, and yet he could not stop wondering over her. “Do you need something?”

 

Turning her head to look up at him, she asks, “Need?”

 

“Something to mourn the dead?” Unsure, he suggests, “flowers?”

 

She pauses, thinking, but ultimately declines, “No, I stopped believing in my mother’s gods a long time ago.”

 

He laughs a little at that, “Aye, let the dead keep themselves.”

 

She frowns at that, but he’s no idea why. Without warning, she blurts, “Can we go back now?” He nods and begins to raise a hand, but Belle stops him, “Wait, can we just _walk_ back?” After a moment, she adds, “Please?”

 

He knows not why she rejects his magic, but reaching out a hand he helps her to her feet, and they start the walk back toward home.

 

* * *

 

Baelfire slipped into town after the window. Waking up, it had been a surprise, strange and grand, to find his papa not only home, but sleeping beside their maid. He had gone outside, a mild heat on his cheeks. He had asked Belle once if she and his father spoke as parents do. She had said no, but now, after what he had found, perhaps they could be like that after all. Perhaps he had found something that wasn’t there before.

 

Breaking the window had not been part of the plan.

 

They hadn’t always had windows. Playing ball had been far simpler when their home boasted no glass—not that Baelfire had much time to play in those days during and before the war.

 

Narrowly avoiding true censure from his papa, he chooses to escape and wile away some time in town. He does not stay long, he buys a little sweetbread and plays ball with Lachlann. They hardly notice the clouds growing overhead and the heat building above the village. The first drops startle them. They are large, splashing the dusty road intermittently.

 

“This storm’s nothing,” his friend insists, and then the thunder growls—it lasts ten counts.

 

“I should get home,” Bae announces, pretending the thunder hadn’t made him jump. He steadily kicks the toy through the village lane, but as the drops pick up, Baelfire bends to pick up the ball and hurries his steps, knowing his father will worry. Eyeing the storm front, he thinks he can beat it home. Perhaps Belle will be awake. Maybe he can show them his reading. He has been practicing after all, with little else to be done after the sheep shearing, the days hot and Belle still sick. Perhaps things would be back to normal when he got home (perhaps they would be even better).

Truly, he reaches the forest as the raindrops only make a little song upon the canopy of tree leaves. He will reach home in time.

 

* * *

 

Their walk is unhurried and silent, with only the sounds of the forest to speak to them. There is little to say and much to consider. As the fine cottage comes into view, and the trees about them clear, they begin to feel the rain. Stopping him, a hand to his wrist, she finally breaks their silence, “Thank you, Rumpelstiltskin.”

 

It is not the first time she has dared to use his name, but this time it somehow strikes him as different, as almost kind. “’Tis no matter,” he stops, looking at her and chooses to reply with the same, “Belle.”

 

She smiles at him, but then her eyes slip past his shoulder. “What? What is it?” Turning, the spinner finds what caught her eye: Baelfire races toward them, a dark storm hard upon his heels. The tower of the storm is dark, a gray-green, unpleasant and heavy. The clouds roil and roll in on one another, so great and large behind their boy.

 

He is quite close, but the clouds break upon them all. The rain pours, coming down in sheets. They wait for him, and when he reaches them, _finally_ , they are all soaked to the bone.

 

Baelfire smiles at them, mischief dancing in his eyes, water dripping from his hair down his cheeks, “Are you feeling better Belle?”

 

She blinks her eyes, shaking the fear from her face. “Yes, Master Bae,” She runs a hand through the boy’s messy hair, “Now let’s get inside!” She has to raise her voice over the growing din of the storm.

 

Inside, she shoos the men to their corners of the house, and she leaves for the hearth to build up their fire. She leans down on her haunches, and losing herself to the dance of the flames, she allows herself to worry over what she saw. Belle was not one for faith and superstitions, but she admitted to magic in many forms. She knew the moment she had chanced her eye to Baelfire running from the squall, that she had fallen upon an ill omen. Though not all premonitions come to pass, she frets, poking at the fire. Thick raindrops, pounding so hard upon the roof, these might clean the dust and sweat from the village. The rain may water her ruined garden and draw weeds to grow over her father’s barren grave, but it could not wash away this dreadful feeling of fear.

 

* * *

 

The rain eases just before sundown. Baelfire hunches at the open window, watching the storm pass, the rain a gentle patter where before it had been a howling gale, listening for the intermittent growls of thunder and counting the beats on his fingers before he can spot the accompanying flash of lightning.

 

He hunches at the _mended_ window.

 

“Close that up, boy,” Rumpelstiltskin calls from where he sits by the fire, a pipe in hand, “you’ll catch your death’a cold, son.” He props his bad leg up on another chair, despite the curse, he can nary quite grow used to the silence from his leg. A storm like this would have had him near-doubled over in pain. ‘Tis strange this body.

 

‘Tis strange this life, a monster of infinite power, puffing his spinner’s pipe, a maid flittering around him, his son, safe and robed in fine clothing. He feels no pain, and he’d always a hideous face and cruel streak, hardly a price at all for such a life as this.  

 

“He’s right, the night air’s not good for you,” Belle agrees, slipping the washed bowls and cutlery into a cabinet. They had survived their fall, Rumpelstiltskin magic-ing them to the ground from her hands, to wait for them to all come back home again. “Darker than usual,” she says, moving to light candles throughout the cottage. They breathe smoky at first, but putter to a lighter flame anon. She yawns, unused to such work after many days abed.

 

He watches her work out the corner of his eye, a speck, all brown and creamy whites, moving from shadow to shadow—a hand cleaning the table, at his son’s shoulder, placing linens in a chest. She moves seamlessly about them. Her days away in the world of grief had shocked him and frightened his son. Baelfire looks quite at ease now, with the world returned to as it should be. The boy does not fault their maid, the child’s mind quick to forget.

 

But who sits, smoking with a full belly? Rumpelstiltskin too has fallen into a peace at the hands of their caretaker. They had been rather lost without her. Flummoxed, Rumpelstiltskin wonders when it had become so.

 

With a heavy—and, the father dares imagine, a rather put on—sigh, Baelfire stands, closing the window. This time of night had always been difficult for his son, the child an active and energized boy. Winding down in the evenings had been something of a power struggle, particularly in the years before Milha’s untimely departure. She had never quite excelled at cajoling their boy into the more mundane activities of waning hours, nor to an early sleep (their night-owl habits, a tendency shared among both the mother and son).

 

“Bae, mayhaps you could practice your letters a bit, hm?” Belle gently suggests.

 

Of course, the boy races (only tripping over his own feet once) to grab his primer and bring it back to the dining table. Rumpelstiltskin looks between the boy and the maid, the ease with which she drew his attention from the window and storm to a task to bridge waking and rest.

 

Belle catches his gaze, and guessing its meaning offers him a smile and wink, from where she peers over Baelfire’s shoulder across the table, to watch his work. Ruffling his hair, she tells him, “Someone’s been practicing. Soon, your father’s going need to bring home more books for you to read.” Noting her employer’s continued stare, a gentle blush rises to her cheeks. Eyes darting, she chuckles a little, nervous, under his eye, and crosses the room. She gathers up laundry—the son having a habit of leaving clothes on any and every surface of the middling-sized cottage. Belle manages the door open, arms full of clothing. She huffs, noting, the still-steady pitter-patter of the rain. The ground a veritable wetlands of mud and tiny rivulets, “No point in laundering this evening.”

 

“Too wet?” Bae asks.

 

“Yes, Master Bae, quite the mess,” she agrees, dropping the clothing in a basket in the corner beside the desk.

 

“Too wet…” the boy ventures, “to walk home?”

 

Instantly stilled, Belle thinks, in that moment, _oh gods, what have we done_?

 

“You can have my bed, Belle,” he offers, “I don’t mind sleeping on the hearth.” He is sweet and all that is kind in the world. Belle has only felt more afraid twice in her life—before the explosions and afterward.

 

“You can’t sleep on the hearth, boy,” Rumpelstiltskin sits, pulling his leg from the chair opposite and the pipe from his mouth.

 

“You did,” he retorts, “for days.”

 

At the revelation of his sacrifice to his maid’s comfort in her mourning madness, the Dark One grumbles, grinding his teeth, ‘Tisn’t a game of piper’s chair Baelfire,” he tells him between ground teeth, more than a little exasperated. “Besides, Bae, she’d hardly want to sleep in that old loft.”

 

“What’s so bad about my loft?” the boy squawks. His father had offered him a new room, but the boy had demanded a loft, just like the last in their old, decrepit home, when Rumpelstiltskin had this new cottage fashioned for them.

 

“Aye, just the fact that I wake up with a crick in my neck e‘er time I sleep there,” the father bites back.

 

Belle watches the exchange. She had never shared quite so common a speech with her parents, even on the run as deserters, there had been too much fear and too little comfort between her father and she, to chaff at one another in such a way. It sets her on edge, this toying. What’s more, her presence is perhaps only welcomed by half the company; her eyes blink too quick, at their banter. This wasn’t her family. “No, Bae, I’ll be fine in my place.”

 

Both men look up. Suddenly, it’s not Saorla’s place—she had called that gross hovel her own.

 

“Don’t be—“ the father begins, but stutters to a stop. Instead, Rumpelstiltskin chances a different tact, “In this weather?”

 

Belle frowns, “It’s rained before.” She puts a hand to the door, ajar, “Never concerned you before.”

 

These words are the most daring she has chanced before Baelfire, and his silence confirms it: this is not her place.

 

This is not her home.

 

She gives him a sad nod, “If you’ve no further need, I will be leaving—by your leave, sir?”

 

His eyes widen, his mouth dropping, but for only a moment before he raises his hand, gesturing her on, “As you will, dearie.”

 

Raising her eyebrows, she nods and turns to walk home in the rain. She does not turn back, even as she hears Bae’s call, even as she feels the chill in the air, and even as she knows she had seen a touch of sadness in Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes.

 

She trudges to her hovel (she doesn’t cry, but the rain on her face makes it feel quite like) and when she arrives, pushing open the shite door, she finds it cold, the fire long since dead, and the roof leaking, but when she lays down head, sleeps comes (and she’s not like to turn her nose up at it, even if it only comes in fits and starts).

 

* * *

 

The next day, the children accost Belle.

 

She is in her garden pulling weeds (her muscles aching and worse for the wearing after a night’s sleep. She has grown soft after a week spent in Rumpelstiltskin’s bed. She forces herself to remain kneeling and take her punishment without complaint).

 

“Why didn’t you stay?”

 

Sighing, she sits back on her haunches, “Well met, Master Baelfire.” She rubs her forearm over her sweating brow (for it is high summer and near high noon and damn hot all day long) and stares into the sun, the young ones nothing more than blights before her eyes. She can’t make out their features, but she knows they are disappointed. She waits them out with her silence. She had avoided father and son successfully throughout the morning, but she knew that could not last forever.

 

“ _Belle_ ,” he whines.

 

Her smile droops and she takes a deep breath through her nose (she is young and can yet remember the feeling of youth, but in this moment she is so very annoyed at this boy), “ _Bae_ , this is not my place.”

 

“So you don’t want to stay?” the boy’s voice is soft and full of water, like a drop of dew, all hope and little promise; Belle’s head aches with the sound.

 

With a grunt and a groan, she stands, her muscles crying out. She pulls off her dirtied kerchief and wipes her muddy hands with it, “It’s not that I don’t want to stay, but there’s more to it than that.” They look at her not comprehending. “You’re not the only member of the household, Baelfire.”

 

“Maybe _he_ wanted you to stay,” Morraine offers.

 

She can see them now, Baelfire and his dearest friend. Their faces are so bright, too bright. She tilts her head at her young charges, “What gossip have you two been sharing?” The thoughtless question slips out despite Belle not really desiring the answer. They both shrug, a captured look on their smooth faces. She knows then that Bae had most certainly seen her and Rumpelstiltskin yesterday morn (she had always known he had seen, but had placed mistaken hopes on the ridiculous notion that he had taken no notice of their sleeping postures. It was stupid of her, as usual).

 

Toeing the dirt in front her, the pretty girl with the flaxen hair eyes her idle tracings, “Maybe he was afraid to ask you to stay.” The whispered words give Belle pause—much as she’d like them to not.

 

_It wouldn’t be the first that he’d played the coward._

 

Shaking such thoughts from her head, she bids them, “I find it hard to believe that neither of you have tasks on which to better spend your time.” Hands on her hips, she raises an eyebrow, “Shall I find you some?”

 

Deep frowns and a look exchanged between the half-grown pair has them racing away, waving to her, “Bye Belle.”

 

“Uh huh, as I thought,” she replies more to herself than they. Bending down, she gathers her vegetable basket. The peppers and parsnips were doing nicely, but the lettuce was nearly done and gone to seed, the shoots sprouting like wild and harried beanstalks—bitter to the taste and tough under the blade. She moves to the larder to clean and cut her pickings, but Morraine’s words follow her.  

 

Belle certainly knew fear. She even knew the fear to love. There had been no mystery to Gaston—he was a distraction at best (and dull most other days). She had feared the insanity of loving one like him and loving one of his station. So she didn’t.

 

Perhaps she couldn’t love at all.

 

The very idea of Rumpelstiltskin, _the Dark One_ , afraid to take her up on her offer of a shared bed (and the small possibility of a shared heart) strikes Belle as ludicrous, but then he was a man once, a cowardly, lame man. Her employer all too often needed a push in the right direction—one that Belle provided sparingly and with resignation. Too, he had no fear to yell at her, when the mood took him. Could he need a push now?

 

(Did she even want to give him one?)

 

He had come home from violence and mischief of some sort, though he shared none the details with the likes of her, and still she had felt the slow rush of desire, lying beside him. That feeling she had hardly expected to ever feel again. It was a strange thing, desiring the ugly creature. What’s more she had nearly promised to stay here, in this place. Those were words Belle had never expected to feel, nonetheless utter (and most assuredly not to _him_ ).

 

In that moment, she thinks of the sellslove’s words: what game was Belle playing at? How long could she play it? Did she want to stop?

 

Too entrenched in her thoughts, she does not hear the small feet approach her. She jumps, at the quiet words: “Does he hurt you?”

 

Turning round, Belle lets out a laugh at herself, at her own fear at being startled, “Morraine, you frightened me.”

 

She asks, not bothering to apologize, her eyes intense, “Is that why you didn’t want to stay?”

 

Belle tilts her head, finally catching her meaning, and peering behind the girl, she does not see Baelfire anywhere. Listening, she can hear her boy playing not far off, but Morraine has given him the slip.

 

Morraine has given him the slip to check on her safety. Stepping closer, the girl asks again, “Is he kind to you?”

 

The intensity hangs in the humid air around them—their shared knowledge of the war (Morraine may be a child, but in this at least, they are peers). She hardly knows how to give an answer to the girl’s serious mien, and so she answers truthfully, “Sometimes.”

 

Of course, she understands. Nodding—and perhaps, a little self-conscious, for she toys with the tips of her hair—she offers, “They’ll be going to sell the wool soon. You could go with them?”

 

Titling her head, Belle considers the suggestion. The idea had merit. She need not stay at the cottage, but a travel to town would be a glimpse: a chance to consider possibilities. Smiling, she says, “Thank you, Morraine.”

 

She nods and runs off to find her partner—she does not beam (Morraine is long since past _beaming_ ), but her smile was sweet, nearly childlike.

 

* * *

 

This morning, Rumpelstiltskin had awoken warm, well-rested, and in a maudlin mood. The activity of day had not fared much better.

 

He was still annoyed that his trip had brought him little news of Milha and the pirate company—despite _persuasive_ discussion with more than one person in dark corners. The freemartin had gotten away from the rest of the flock and had been an irritant to chase back. Decidedly stubborn, that one.

 

(He toyed with the idea of naming her after another stubborn lass with a mean streak).

 

Last, and not least Baelfire had been decidedly not nearly as helpful this year with the wool preparation. ‘O course, the green boy had been plenty keen on the shearing, but the sorting, cleaning, and combing, well…

 

The boy lets out a holler and a giggle, outside. Rumpelstiltskin sighs, looking out the window, his hand stilling from their carding. His boy was happy. His boy had a full belly. His boy had friends.

 

He could finish the wool on his own.

 

“They’re sweet, aren’t they?”

 

He starts, but tries to hide his surprise at the maid in his doorway. She carried a basket of laundering (she always carried a basket of laundering), perched high on her hip. The posture gave the most interesting curve to her, and even in her plain dress, sweaty, nearly dripping from the day, Rumpelstiltskin feels his cock give a jump.

 

Scowling, he swallows and decidedly ignores it, returning to the carding. However, even he has to admit: “Aye, they are.”

 

She crosses the fine floors, her feet tapping out where she is (because he is _not_ watching her), distributing their fresh linens and depositing the basket to its prescribed corner—waiting for Baelfire to race through all his clean clothes like a naughty, untrained beast. One would think the boy more prudential after the privations of his childhood, but he had a true talent for mischief of the messy variety. However, when her footsteps fail to continue back out the door, stopping instead before him, he looks up and positively spits, “What?”

 

Belle blinks, the harsh statement throwing her off-balance.

 

 _Good_ , he thinks. _Let her feel wrong-footed for once_.

 

She recovers however, taking a breath, and asks, “How goes it?”

 

Rumpelstiltskin gives her a strange look, holding up his hand cards, “This?”

 

She nods and looks, to him, in earnest. He indulges her, shrugging, “Well enough, I suppose.” Feeling more at east, discussing his former craft, “’Tis the last batch of the woolen.”

 

“So soon? What about the worsted?”

 

“We finished the coarse some time back, left the fine for last, and just in time too.” Lowering his eyes, he adds, “We worked in the evenings; you were… otherwise engaged.” He knows not how to refer to her time in his house and in his bed. At his words, she only looks a touch shamefaced.

 

She tarries, and he feels the heat of the blood in his cheeks and brow at her stare. He wonders what she’s on about. His temper growing thin, he asks, “Something you needed, dearie?”

 

That causes her to flinch, the fire to his tone, but she takes one of those deep huffs again, “Actually yes. You’ll be going to sell it soon: take me with you.”

 

He doesn’t answer right away, his head tilting at the request, and then all at once he chuckles, low and cold, “Oh, I don’t think so.”

 

“Why not?” she asks.

 

Losing what little hold he had on his control, he tosses the carding combs on his desk with a clatter and crossing his arms over his chest, he spits back, “You must think me daft. Else why would I give you a head a start on leaving?”

 

“Leaving?”

 

“Aye, and if you think I’m about to help you steal away into the night while our heads are turned in town, you’ve got another thing coming.” The plural slips out unintentional, his thoughts already to Bae’s pain when she inevitably runs away. Reclining, he puts on a slick smile, “But really, lass, wouldn’t it be better to make your escape while I’m off—slip away? You’d be leagues gone before me and my boy returned to pick up the mess.” His features scrunch together in a sneer, “Better for all, if you do it like that.”

 

She looks like she wants to strangle him where he sits.

 

 _Good, let her try_ , the Dark One thinks.

 

However, shockingly, her words are composed and quiet, “I don’t want to go with you to run away.” She stares directly at him, and he, oddly, can see tears in her eyes and disgust around her mouth, “I don’t want to be left behind, but it’s good to know what you think of me.” The maid turns on her heel.

 

“Belle—“ he begins, but she can’t hear him over the slamming of the door. He does not call her back again.

 

* * *

 

They do not speak. She comes in the mornings and leaves in the evenings. She knows that Rumpelstiltskin watches her steps. She does not dignify the attention with comment.

 

However, Belle knows her anger to only be partially justified. Before the morning of his most recent return, her eventual departure had been something of an unspoken agreement between the two of them. She had agreed not to speak of an uncertain future to Baelfire, but that had all changed with Maurice.

 

She was free now.

 

Bile rises to the top of her throat at such a thought (and not for the first time), but it is true enough. She was no longer tied to this place and these people, but for once she does not revel in the chance to slip away to new cities, new sights, and new ports of call.

 

She wonders if she had meant what she said the morning of his return (all of it). At the time, she thought she had, but Morraine in her concern and Rumpelstiltskin with his spite have reminded Belle that his kindness is not a certainty. Rather, there are brief flickers, some more lasting than others.

 

There had been blood under his nails, but far worse, he thought her false and one to use him. She was angry over the presumption.

 

When Rumpelstiltskin leaves after breaking his fast, at first she is glad of it, free from his stares, but as the day drags on, she wonders over what he can possibly be doing. Perhaps he went alone, without even Baelfire, to sell his wares, she wonders, but after checking, she finds the wool stacked tidy, off the ground, still awaiting market day.

 

Annoyingly, despite all her best efforts, her thoughts keep turning to him, and when Rumpelstiltskin saunters in, just after dinner, the words slip out: “Where have you been?”

 

“Why, I’ve been in the village,” he holds up two satchels, smirking, “and busy too.”

 

“Presents?” the son asks. The youth had taken quickly to the pleasure of trinkets from his father from his travels. Toys and curiosities—but rarely clothing, after the first few days in the wealth that power brings.

 

“Purchased with true coin and made by craftsmen’s own hand, my boy.” He tosses the first to Baelfire, and walking more slowly, simply passes the second to Belle, “’Tis time to sell the wool.”

 

She waits, not really daring to believe the implication. The son does not, tearing into his bag, but pulling forth his gift, he lets out a wail of disappointment. “ _Clothes_ ,” he grumbles.

 

Rolling his eyes, Rumpestiltskin sighs at his son, “Not long ago, you would have jumped for joy at new shoes, _but_ there’s more, go outside and see to it—if you can find it.”

 

The boy gives his father a rueful look, moving past him and out the door on this newest adventure.

 

Belle is also, not sure what to make of Rumpelstiltskin’s gift, “What is this?”

 

“You could open it and find out.” She simply stares at him, and just as with his son, he gives her a tired sigh, “’Tis true that word has spread of the new Dark One,” he gives a little toying-bow, arms outstretched, “some even say he has a boy, _a son_.” Raising a finger, he continues this merry dance, “but a band of three? Merchants, traveling to sell their wares, that would cause far less comment.”

 

She’s not convinced, “But you said—“

 

“I know what I said,” the spinner cuts her off, but it is resignedly soft (and perhaps even, a touch remorseful), “just open it.” Then, belatedly he adds, “please.”

 

Belle, still looking at her master, opens her own parcel, pulling out the gift. Slowly, she unwraps it, letting it fall toward the wood floor, revealing a thick blue fabric, fine enough for tapestry, but light enough for the thick summer airs, adorned with even paler blue florets and trimmed in a tawny brown. She runs her hands over the fine cloth and embroidery, soft as silk but strong and well-made (famously paid for, she is sure). With the exception of her maid’s uniform, she had not had new clothes since before her mother’s passing, nor any quite so fine.

 

“There’s more, dearie,” he nigh on whispers.

 

Indeed, she pulls a light gossamer chemise from the bag, with a tiny row of lace and eyelets edging along the neck and cap-sleeve arms. Delicate and dainty and nothing so fine as Belle has seen in years long since past. Likewise, she pulls forth an underskirt and the smallest set of panniers she has ever seen. Really, it is more akin to a belt than a skirt, the side hoops in such a shape as to make the blue skirt flair only a faint touch on each side, rising to above her ankle, she imagines. The length is not indecent, but practical: a dress for purposeful movement.

 

A fine dress, and it is clear the kind of lady it was made to bedeck: merchant class, well-off but in need of mobility to move about her shop and assist her family in the signing of contracts and the moving of capital and product. She is active, if refined. You can find her in warehouses doing inventory or tucking in her child in a nursery. She works at her husband’s side and perhaps a fine dowry solidified her husband’s business endeavors. Young enough to be his second wife, she even dares imagine.

 

“Do you like it?”

 

Belle shakes herself of the glossy dream. “Yes,” she admits, honest. “It’s beautiful.”

 

“There are slippers and a cloak too. Would you like to see them?” He gestures a hand toward the door, allowing her to lead the way. Belle wonders, moving out the door and down the path from the house, unsure of what she’s meant to find, but she follows Baelfire’s voice, and there, just at the edge of the forest, he stands with a sturdy wagon

 

Before, they had always pulled their own hay cart to market. A clunky and heavy bastard of a thing, the wagon before them was made for greater folk. Bae however, is entranced by the gentle, gray donkey harnessed to it. Belle circles the wagon, taking in the painted trim and the metal axel, before giving the creature a lazy scratch behind the ear. The animal leans in to her touch, and she resists being charmed. _Do the brave thing_. “You really think this spoiled creature shall get us to market?” she asks.

 

“He’ll do,” he too, joins them to lavish a bit of lazy attention on the donkey.

 

“And just how far are we going?”

 

He smiles at her, knowing amends have been made, “Longbourne market—the finest market in these parts. A half-day’s ride to the north.”

 

The donkey gives a snort—giving Bae a case of the chuckles—and Belle to give a skeptical look to her employer, “I hope you didn’t pay too much for this one. I don’t like the look of him,” but she smiles when she says it, all bark and no bite.

 

“Oh, the wainwright charged me a hefty sum.”  

 

“You were cheated, Rumpelstitlskin.”

 

Tilting his head, he concedes, “Perhaps.” Holding up a finger, “Which is why such gifts are not without cost.”

 

She tilts her head, but he has turned away from her. With a flourish of the hand, she hears a large _thud_ behind them. Looking up the hill toward the house, she spots the dining table and chairs—even the dinner bowls—standing just outside the front steps. Turning, she finds that Rumpelstiltskin holds up two large buckets in his hand, “One cannot go to market smelling of sheep—even with the finest wool this village has to offer. Let’s remedy that.” He gives Baelfire a pointed look and starts to ruffle his hair, but pulls his hand back, “Ah—you sweaty thing.”

 

Bae laughs at his father, “Sorry, papa.”

 

“You’re not,” he passes him one of the buckets, “but perhaps gathering water will help your contrition.”

 

Groaning, he trudges toward the creek. Moving past him, Rumpelstiltskin gives the other bucket to Belle, “If you would be so kind?”

 

Catching on, Belle imagines she’ll find an unfortunately large bathtub has replaced their dining set. She accepts the bucket, but narrowing an eye, asks, “But couldn’t you just,” she snaps her fingers to demonstrate, “fill it with your magic?”

 

“I could, but Baelfire, has recently expressed his deep disinterest in my methods.”

 

“You still use magic every day.” She thinks of the broken window and their broken moment.

 

“Yes, but not when it’s on him.” He points to her dress, “Real clothes.” He taps the bucket, “Real water.”

 

“Happy son.”

 

“Aye, happy son.”

 

She turns to begin, but flips back, “Why aren’t you helping?”

 

A hand to his chest and a put on look of disbelief, “Me? Dearie, I have to see to the wagon.”

 

* * *

 

Inside, Rumpelstiltskin is pleased with his work. A fine copper tub stands beside the fireplace, and their maid has strung up the clothesline to offer substantial privacy. Filling the tub had been simple enough—if time consuming. It had given him a kick, putting them to work filling the gargantuan tub. If the mending of the window had not been enough, perhaps this would serve as a reminder of all the good that magic could bring their lives.

 

They had fallen into a balance of sorts. Bae had always been wary of Rumpelstiltskin’s newfound power, but had been at least open to the opportunities. Seeing straw spun into gold was more miracle than magic— _it was a blessing_. What’s more, it _intrigued_ his brilliant boy. However, after Belle had left the night of the storm, that all had changed.

 

Rumpelstiltskin had thought his son asleep—his mind preoccupied by the maid and the morning (and perhaps even Milha)—when washing his face, hands and arms with a rag at his basin stand. He had been wrong.

 

“That’s blood.”

 

Looking up, the father finds Bae staring at the dirtied— _bloodied—_ water in the basin, from where he had cleaned beneath his nails. His son knew now, no matter how well Rumpelstiltskin had tried to hide, the true nature of his father’s trips, “Bae, I can explain.”

 

The boy waits, but his father, of course, has nothing else to say. Finally, the son speaks, “You hurt people.” The words are sure, and not entirely surprised—he had clearly at the very least wondered over frequent Rumpelstiltskin’s absences. “You hurt people all the time with your magic.”

 

“I also help people—I’ve provided us with good food and a fine home. We’re warm and _safe_ because of magic!”

 

The boy shakes his head, “The cost is too high if you’re hurting others to do it!”

 

“Bae, what are you saying?”

 

“I don’t want your magic anymore.” He takes his father by the wrists, “I love you, but I don’t want you to use magic for me.”

 

“Ah,” Rumpelstiltskin gripes, “you don’t mean that.”

 

“I _do_.” The son gives his father a serious look. “Please, papa, promise me—no magic.”

 

The sound melts the Dark One’s resolve, “Alright son—as you wish. No more magic.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin thinks back to that night. Since, true to his word, he had nary conjured a bauble, nor cursed a villager. For himself, true, he continued to use magic, and Bae, made no mention of these slights of hand. He paid with magic coin, but aye, the goods were real enough. The bathtub swap had bent their rules, but he thought his son would forgive him just this once.

 

However, real water, real soap, and real scrubbing stones had barely been enough to entice his son into the bath. As Belle boiled each bucket of water, transferring it into the copper bathtub, she and Rumpelstiltskin worked against Baelfire’s resolve, telling him how nice it would feel and how fine he would look in his new clothes, but in the end, only his father’s declaration that he could not go to town without a bath, forced the boy into the water.

 

“And I expect you to scrub everything,” he calls across the curtain to his boy.

 

Belle laughs at them, heading outside to gather the bowls still sitting on the misplaced table. Rumpelstiltskin follows her, “You don’t seem to share my son’s aversion to a good bath?”

 

She chuckles, “Oh no, my father created the most wonderful invention to catch the rain water. When we needed to bath, a pipe would lead to a boiler, which led to another pipe, leading to the tub. Mama dearly loved that one.” He can see the very moment she remembers that her father and mother are dead and gone. Her face falls, but only a little. Brushing off her darker thoughts, she goes on, “Anyway, I think that invention might actually take off.”

 

Pulling out one of the chairs, Rumpelstiltskin takes a seat, watching her work. Feeling his gaze, she looks up at him, “Yes?”

 

He falters, giving a touch of a smile, “Well—I was thinking, with you joining us, we’ll need someone to look after the animals.” She leans over the table, waiting for him. “What about Bae’s little friend? Give her something for her time?”

 

Her bright smile battles with the darkening eve—and wins, “I think that’s wonderful.”

 

“Good,” he nods, though he knows not why—he need not her approval of his choice for temporary caretaker, “good thing.”

 

(He doesn’t mind it, all the same).

 

Giving him a strange look, she pulls out another chair and sits, slowly. She plucks Baelfire’s new boots from the table, where he had discarded them after the initial cooing. Using her apron, she brushes off what little dust has gathered from the boy running them from the wagon to the house. Then, she runs her hand over the pounded leather. He knows what she feels—the silken texture of the oil-rubbed leather boots. He paid a mighty sum to the cobbler, but for whatever reason, Rumpelstiltskin had not the heart to bother with a fight over coin; his boy would have those shoes.

 

(Mercer Barclay was another matter—true his things were quite fine, but not for the price he liked to play at for his clothing).

 

“Thank you,” she says out of nowhere.

 

He shrugs, suddenly a little embarrassed over the extravagances. “’Twas nothing, lass.”

 

“Not just the clothes.” She catches his eye, and he knows that she understands the amends he had been trying to make. They are of an accord.

 

He should say it. He should say the words—apologize and make it real, but for some reason, his mouth is wooly-dry, his brain dumb. (His pride stiff).

 

Instead he does the next best he can manage: “You can have the water, after Bae. I don’t mind waiting till last.”

 

She smirks at that, “A bath sounds wonderful.”

 

* * *

 

Sticking a hand into the tub, Belle finds the water decidedly tepid. Not necessarily a bad thing—she sets a pot of water to boil over the fire to add to the tub. She is happy however, to find that Baelfire, the messy boy, has left the water fairly clear. She gathers up his dirtied clothing from the floor, setting them to the side. She would launder all their things when they returned from market.

 

She hears the curtain rustle, without looking up, she asks, “Forget something, Master Bae?”

 

“No,” Rumpelstiltskin replies.

 

She stands straighter, watching as he moves to the hearth. Slowly, but with a practiced hand, he removes the pot from the heat. Furrowing her brow, she asks, “What are you doing?”

 

The lights are low, Belle neglecting to light the evening candles with all the fuss. Only the fire illuminates them, bouncing and dancing. The light plays strange on his face, his sharp features softened, the mottled coloring, more an intriguing glow. She blinks, the room heavy with the steam from the water and the usual smoke from the fire, condensed from the privacy screen, she’d hung. He bears no emotion (and strangely, his traveling cloak has been removed, she oddly notes) when he asks, quiet and solemn, “I thought you might wish for new water.”

 

“I thought you said no magic?” she asks. Out of nowhere her mind reminds her that Baelfire is asleep, worn out from the excitement and calmed by the bath.

 

The man does not mince words, nor play with them as the Dark One is often wont to do. He offers simply: “You’re not Baelfire.”

 

Her back prickles and she swallows, but after a beat, she cannot help but nod, “Yes, please.”

 

Inclining his head, he snaps his finger—no smirk, no smoke—and, Belle stepping close to look into the tub, sees that indeed he has freshened the water. Peering down into the crystal clear bath, she says, “I think you’ve vanished the soap as well.”

 

“Ah, of course.” The turn of the wrist, that looked like magic, but perhaps was simple slight of hand, he reveals a fresh chunk.

 

She takes it from his outstretched hand, their fingers brushing.

 

“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She can’t see it, but imagines a flush rising to his neck.

 

She feels it too.

 

With an awkward nod, Rumpelstiltskin slips behind the makeshift curtain, leaving her to her bathing. She watches him go, and listening for him, notes the door opening and shutting. Still, Belle first dampens the fire even lower, before disrobing and slipping into the tub. She gasps at the heat of the water—nearly scalding, she has not felt such a thing since before her mother passed.

 

The soap too is a long since forgotten luxury—manufactured from the guildmasters and licensed and taxed throughout the kingdom. In addition, her foot stumbles upon an unexpected rock at the bottom of the tub. She pulls it up and finds it to be a pumice stone. Between the soap and the stone, her skin feels fresh and a little raw, and after washing her long hair, she reclines against the edge of the tub, enjoying the ebbing heat of the water.

 

* * *

 

Rumpelstiltskin mills about the animal pens as long as he dares, the night air and darkness surrounding him—he does not care to be out during the nights when he finds himself home. Nights are when the voices grow too loud, and when held by compare to the warmth of his home and his bed, he much prefers the latter.

 

Returning, he feels ill at ease. He can see her shadowed head, just above the outline of the tub. The light is low, but he can watch her. Not knowing quite what to do with himself, he sits on his bed, and try as he might, he cannot stop himself from tracing her shadow.

 

The smell of the fine soap fills the tight cottage and unnerves him.

 

Without, desire or forethought, he slips into sleep, dust from the day still about him. He had not thought sleep would come so easily, but it does and it feels like much time, when with a jolt, he awakens. Blinking up at her, his words are of course, inane and sleep-addled, “I waited, in case you fell asleep in the bath.”

 

She chokes on a little laugh, “No, that was just you.” Then, biting her lip she adds, “I’m sorry—I took too long.”

 

“’Tis no matter, dearie,” he mumbles, wanting nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep. When the girl turns to leave, he catches her wrist, asking her own question: “Stay?”

 

He is already falling, but he can still feel it as she settles next him, hair wet and smelling vaguely floral. He tightens his arms around her.

 

* * *

 

Rumpelstiltskin awakens to the most pleasant dream. Stretching and burrowing back into the blankets, the waking is slow.

 

Then he jolts—had she stayed?

 

_Had it been a dream?_

 

He thinks it had been real, but daren’t trust himself. Sitting up he stretches, finding the curtain still hung. He walks through, finding the tub full of cold water.

 

“You’re awake.”

 

Turning, he finds Belle dressed in her new garb, the blue dress bringing out the color to her eyes. She wears the hoops and heeled shoes. She looks lovely, but he can’t find the words to tell her so.

 

At his appraisal, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear with a nervous hand and moves past him reaching for the fire poker. Rumpelstiltskin stops her with a hand to her wrist, “You need not—you wouldn’t want to sully your new things now.” He takes the poker from her hands, rousing the fire on his own.

 

“Thank you,” she tells him. “Now, you need to hurry and clean up—else we’ll be late.” Raising her eyebrows, she turns on her dainty heel and brushes past the curtain. The curl to her shoulders, the corner of her smile—they held an answer, but he had been too afraid to ask.

 

* * *

 

Belle had returned to her habits rather quickly, rising early and requiring little sleep. She had slipped from his arms early, taking only a brief moment to stay in the warmth. Readying herself had been simple and leaving Rumpelstiltskin to his bath, likewise. Even rousing Bae, calling up to his loft, had been simpler than usual—the excitement drawing him downstairs for his new clothing.

 

After dressing, Baelfire races outside. Despite his zeal, Belle thinks he looks rather smart in his embroidered vest and short pants. Slipping on his leather boots at the door, he races to get the donkey hitched to the wagon. He doesn’t head straight to the pen, and she can hear him rummaging at the side of the house.

 

 _Ah_ , she thinks, _he’s nicking one of my carrots._

 

Rumpelstiltskin hollers, emerging from the curtain, as the boy runs past the door again, “Well done—leaving with both arms empty.” Shaking his head, he turns to find the maid staring.

 

“Better?” she asks.

 

“Aye, much.” He gathers up as much of their wares as he can and heads out. Belle follows suit.

 

Despite not helping load their wagon, Baelfire has certainly gotten everything ready to depart, and after a few more trips and donning their cloaks, the party of three is ready to set off. “Your girl will be by later today?” he asks his son.

 

Baelfire rolls his eyes, “It’s _Morraine_ , and aye, papa, she’ll tend the animals today and next.”

 

Nodding, “Very good.” He had sent Bae running to the village before his bath to make arrangements with the girl. Adjusting his cloak (and the dagger where it rests beneath his vest, looking like nothing more than a little protection for the road), he realizes he’s forgotten something—something important. Without pronouncement, he waves a hand and suddenly, he’s himself again.

 

Belle and his boy stare, wide eyed.

 

“ _Papa_ , you’re—“

 

“Me?” he asks, hoping he got the spell right.

 

The boy nods with a sweet smile, “Perfect.”

 

Turning to Belle he asks if indeed, he has magic-ed himself into his old appearance as the hobbling Spinner—though without the hobble this time, “Well? Is it as you recall?”

 

Belatedly, shaking herself from her staring, she too nods, “Yes, the self-same.”

 

“Good, can’t have the Dark One traipsing around with an entourage, now can we?” He asks to no one in particular. “Let’s be off, shall we?” Rumpelstiltskin takes the reigns and Baelfire jumps in back, and after only a moment’s hesitation, the spinner reaches a hand down to help her up to sit beside him.

 

The wagon is smooth, despite the mediocre road. Fine ride and fine livery, it’s feels like a dream to Belle as they amble down the road, but when they pass Hangman’s Tree, where the path meets up with the village main and crosses with the road to Longbourne, the figure waiting there makes Belle realize this most certainly be no dream.

 

Carlotta the sellslove leans against a signpost, waiting, even in the early morn to offer her services to weary and lonesome travelers. Bored and rumpled from a night’s work, she spots them.

 

It only takes a moment before she recognizes the party. The look to her reminds the maid of Bitter Buttons, and with a daring smile on her lips, the woman dares to wave as they drive on past.

 

Belle turns around to stare back at her—Bae had waved, innocent as ever, and leans over the edge of the wagon to the driver’s bench, “Who is that, papa?”

 

“Carlotta, son.” The words are hard pressed from the spinner, “Lady of the night—you need not know her.”

 

Baelfire blushes and returns to the back, to watch the road, but Belle is ill at ease.

 

Rumpelstiltskin can guess at the feeling, “You know her?”

 

She nods, and the woman is little more than a speck in the distance now, growing smaller and smaller, with each jolt forward, “Yes, I met her in town.”

 

He snorts, “A mouth on her, that one.”

 

Tilting her head, she looks at him, and briefly, just for a moment, she wonders at how he knows the sellslove, but it passes.

 

 _It’s no matter_ , _in any case_ , she decides.

 

The woman’s words return to her, and true Belle committed no misdeed this day, driving with her employer and his son, in her fine gifts—she merely was playing house, playing the part of a family in their rich garb and the Dark One wearing a poor man’s face.

 

After all, in the end, it had not been Rumpelstiltskin, but she to ask the inevitable question. She had been the one to invite him to lie with her, not that any would guess as much.

 

* * *

 

They meet few highwaymen, but a little before noontime, they begin to be joined by other merchants off to sell their own goods at market. Longbourne was a fine place, near enough for half a day’s ride, but far and great enough to be in their economic interest to sell there and not in the village.

 

“Here we are,” he tells them, driving into the entrance of the town. Rumpelstiltskin sighs, heavy and tired already, with a perfunctory wave of the hand, “Longbourne.”

 

Belle exchanges a smile and with Baelfire, their excitement brimming. Daring, she nudges Rumpelstiltskin’s shoulder, “Don’t sound so pleased about it.”

 

“Oh, I’m not.”

 

The entrance to the city is stone, covered in ivy, speaking to the age and little prestige of the place. She had not stumbled through this spot, dragging her father to and fro on their run about the kingdoms.

 

She shakes herself, centering on the _now_ , the crush of wagon and folk all moving to the grand marketplace, smelling the air—cooking food and spices, thick summer air, flowers about the walls of the two-story buildings and of course, the night soil and sewer water caressing any large town. They should have arrived earlier, she thinks.

 

When Rumpelstiltskin answers, she realizes she had spoken aloud, “Aye, dearie, but we’re not here to set up a stand. I sell to the same bastard every year—blind as a bat, but he knows his wool, can tell the quality just by the feel—couldn’t cheat him if I tried. We’ll drop ours all in one exchange.”

 

“But we’ll stay, won’t we, papa?” Bae pipes up from the back, he pushes between them, his head darting at the sights and sounds.

 

The father sighs but can hardly deny his boy, “If you wish.”

 

It is then that Belle spots something she has not seen in some time: a book binder and lender (perhaps a printer too). Her eyes widen with thirst—one she would very much like to slake. So she dares to ask, “Would we have time to look at the books?” She points to the simple shop.

 

Rumpelstiltskin follows her finger, and without much expression, he gestures a hand, “Have at it.” His eyes look about to the people surrounding them, his shoulders drawn at the hub-bub of the city, and Belle thinks surely he must despise it all.

 

“Really?”

 

“Aye, Bae and I can deal with the wool.” He looks at her in earnest then, “Meet back at the square?” His words are more than a question—they ask for a promise.

 

Without thinking too long over the gesture, she slips a hand to his knee, “Yes, in the square.” She will come back.

 

Looking from her face to the offending hand, he pulls the wagon to a sharp halt. He inclines his head, “Off to it, then.”

 

Bae gripes in back, “Can’t I go with Belle?”

 

As Belle slips off the rig, the father tells him, “No, son, you have to learn this part of the craft—the going price of wool.”

 

He groans, so, leaning over the edge of the wagon, Belle eases him into the notion, “Perhaps after you’re finished selling your wool, your father can show you around the town, hm?” She gives Rumpelstiltskin a pointed look, and Bae a bright smile, “besides, I’ll bring you back a present.” Winking, she leaves them, making her way to the door. Her hand on the doorknob, she finds them again in the crowd; they don’t look back at her.

 

Oddly, she shivers.

 

Belle shakes off the feeling, attributing it to the strangeness of being amongst so many people (surely, she had not been so surrounded since the camp), and enters the bookstore. She smiles, when a tiny bell rings upon her entrance. Charming.

 

“Good morning!” A tall man greets. His hair is red and curled, and what’s more a pair of spectacles sit upon his nose.

 

She offers a little curtsy, falling into court etiquette.

 

_Old habits die hard._

“Can I help you find anything?” he says with only the slightest of stutter, “Or did you bring a book to exchange for a lending loan?”

 

Opening her palms, she tells him, “Only coin, I’m afraid.” It is true, Rumpelstiltskin had slipped her a little extra coin on the journey, _should anything catch your fancy_ , he had explained, in a mocking voice.

 

The owner laughs a little, “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with that.” A speckled dog sidles up next to the man, all black and white spotted.

 

“I’m looking for a book on alchemy,” she tells him, standing straight, “and a some primers.”

 

* * *

 

The exchange is completed rather quickly—not helped at all by the fact that Bae can neither feign interest in the sale, nor keep from touching _everything_ in the warehouse. He’s shocked when they escape only with the money for the wool and nothing lost from his son’s eager and clumsy hands.

 

“Stay close now,” he tells Baelfire, taking hold of the neck of his cloak. Rumpelstiltskin’s heart skips a beat at his son in such a throng of folk. He wasn’t about to lose him.

 

“Papa, look!” He points to a crowd in one of the alleys, “What are they doing, papa?”

 

The man rolls his eyes, taking in the sight, “Gambling, son.”

 

“Can I see?”

 

The question grates at Rumpelstiltskin’s nerves. “Oh, please, son, let’s not lollygag.”

 

“Please, papa—I’ve never seen it!”

 

He’s not seen half of what is going on in the city center, but the father refrains from saying so. The spinner hated gambling, with a passion, “Fine, but just a look.” As they near closer, he catches sight and recognizes the game instantly: follow the lady.

 

His father taught him well, after all. They watch, over the shoulders of the onlookers (Bae on tiptoes), as the dealer wields his ill-craft. He’s not the slowest dealer Rumpelstiltskin has ever seen, but then, his bar was higher than most. Eyes checking out the crowd, he spots the two shills, one at play, another in the crowd, and perhaps a third with a hand to his chin watching from a distance.

 

 _Aye, most definitely in on the con,_ Rumpelstiltskin thinks when the man with a hand to his chin comes to stand next to him, having openly taken in his fine clothes. He rolls his eyes, _amateurs_.

 

“Easy money, looks like, eh?” he asks, elbowing the old spinner—looking everything like a to-do merchantman.

 

“Don’t touch me.” He is not to be trifled with—and he’s played enough for a lifetimes worth, but then a notion takes him, and when the play ends, the tiny bet taken (to draw in those foolish enough to buy the song and dance), he speaks up, “Can I have a go?”

 

“Papa?” Bae asks, bewildered and wary—he had never seen his father play a game of chance outside their own home.

 

The dealer catches eyes with his compatriot, who gives the slightest of nod.

 

 _Fools_.

 

“Why yes, good sir, do sit. Play our little game.”

 

The father moves to sit, the crowd parting for him. Playing the fool, he even asks, “Now how does this go?” The corner of the dealer’s mouth tilts up, just a smidge, and Rumpelstiltskin knows he’s got him.

 

The hand is dealt,

 

It only takes a touch of magic, to change faces, and when the dealer reveals his chose card, other hand already reaching for the coins on the table, the queen smiles up at him.

 

The dealer is aghast, “You cheated!”

 

“Is that so?” he chuckles.

 

“No, papa,” Bae begins, well-knowing this tone. It usually spoke of smoke and snails.

 

Not today, however. Rumpelstiltskin grabs the offending wrist, and pulls the hidden cards from it. “Now, look lively, all of you,” he turns addressing the crowd, “this is what charlatan games get you.” He lets the man go, just hard enough for him to hit the back of the brick wall. “Peddle your tricks somewhere else.” The glares suggest that they may need more _convincing_ , but turning about, he finds the three partners have made scarce.

 

Then, the dealer dares to laugh, “You’re good.”

 

“Aye, and faster than you.”

 

“Who taught you?” the dealer asks.

 

It was not asked in maliciousness, but mere curiosity. It still sets him off, “’Twas before your time.” His eye turns serious, “Now, be off, before I really show you what I can do.” Such a conman knows a dark tone—one he would rather not face—when he hears it, and scurries away.

 

Presumably to a new town to set up all over again.

 

“You didn’t hurt him.”

 

The words are shocked, and Baelfire’s face too, looks absolutely stunned. It stabs a little, the disbelief, but Rumpelstiltskin scoffs, replying, “They weren’t worth it.”

 

“They?”

 

“Aye, they,” he teaches, numbering the swindlers on his fingers, “the dealer—the one playing when we first arrived—the one who spoke to me—and the one with the starched collar.”

 

“All of them? In on it?”

 

He laughs truly then, “Indeed, son. That’s a con for you. You must have the player to trick others to make it look like easy coin, and then your onlookers to watch for soldiers and likely targets—marks we called ‘em.”

 

“You did this?”

 

Realizing his mistake, he sighs, “Yes, unfortunately, as a boy. The card part ‘tis the easiest.”

 

“Will you show me?”

 

The question strikes him quick and painful, but all the same he tells his son, “I suppose, when we return home.”

 

Bae’s smile is bright and beautiful and Rumpelstiltskin can’t help but mimic it. “I like seeing your face again, papa.”

 

“Why?” the words catching him off guard, “I’m nothing to look at, son.” He had always been an ugly man (and an ugly boy long before).

 

The boy shrugs, not fighting against his father still holding his hand like he was a young child, “I like your face.”

 

The words are the sweetest of poisons. Rumpelstiltskin shakes off the feeling, “You would be the first, I’d wager—“

 

A noise on the air catches his son’s attention, “Oh, papa, look at that!”

 

The boy points to a wagon, shifting positions for the evening crowd, laden with goods and trinkets and oddities from the world over. It belongs to a tinker, sparkling in the high sunlight, and of course Baelfire is charmed.

 

The father’s head droops, but he obliges all the same, “Fine, fine, let us go and spend our hard earned coin on some shiny, worthless bauble.”

 

* * *

 

They shop.

 

 _And shop_.

 

After taking their ridiculous tokens back to the wagon—what once-impoverished father could dare deny his son when coin and gold thread be plenty—Bae and he find the strangest man making sweet ices. They purchase two, not three ( _“But what about Belle, papa?” “No—son—it’ll damn-well melt in an instant in this heat… fine, we can take her back when we meet up”_ ) and sit on the edge of the town well. ‘Tis more like a fountain, carved faces splashing their clean water into the larger pool, waiting for fish wives to fetch and fill their jars before supper. They eat their ices quickly, but they still melt and run down their hands and wrists.

 

A caravan marches past. “Are they leaving already?” his boy asks.

 

Indeed, it’s too early to pack up, though most merchants have broken up from the bustle of their peek hours in the mid-morn, to take a supper and nap. Rumpelstiltskin explains, “No, they are likely going to set up for the night market. It runs along a different path. Begins about sunset and goes till dawn.”

 

Baelfire smiles again, sticky and smudged, “Woa, I’d like to see it.”

 

“Well, mayhaps you shall.” He spins a picture for his son, fine as any wooly thread, “the night smells even greater of spices, for they cook all night long over open flames, food on sticks to tempt passers-by. The merchants are bolder, shouting even louder, and on the edges, you can buy things you would hardly find in the light of day.”

 

The boy’s eyes widen, “Papa, we _must_ go.”

 

“Dances too.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Aye, with ribbons and jumping and spinning. All manner of revelry. Your little maid would have a high time, I think.”

 

Bae laughs, “Belle’s not _my_ maid.” He stops then, looking up at Rumpelstiltskin, “She doesn’t have to be a maid, you know.”

 

The father’s face falls, and he fails to note when his ice melts rapidly all over his hand, “ _Bae_ —“

 

Baelfire, finishing his ice in one ginormous bite, raises his hands in mock misunderstanding, “I bet she likes your face too.”

 

Rumpelstiltskin realizes instantly when the blush hits him—he can feel, but worse, far, far worse, his son laughs at him, “Ha, ha, very funny.” It’s been some time since blush had been visible for the likes of him.

 

The child getting himself under control gives his papa a more serious look, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

 

Without intending to, he replies in kind, “Me too, Bae.”

 

“Would you do it?”

 

“Do what?”

 

“Stay like this?”

 

The severity in the words sit ill—live like this, to-do merchants, traveling to towns to sell and see, with nothing but their wit and hands to protect them, “I—I don’t—that feels a lot like running, son.” Shaking his head, he adds, “Besides, can’t be done, _you know that,_ Bae.” Absently, he pats the dagger hidden at his waist.

 

“But if it could be done?”

 

“I—“ he stops, as a shadow covers them both.

 

* * *

 

When Belle leaves the bookshop at long last, smelling of parchment, velum and ink, she returns to the square. Her burden is heavy, the shoulder bag full of her purchases. The center of town was a little distance from the shop, his location not exactly prime—his wares not exactly popular.

 

It is well after the noon hour.

 

She knows because a bell tolls, in the center of town. The bell is above a chapel.

 

‘Tis a sight Belle has not seen in many, many years. True, she and her father passed the occasional shrine and chapel, but the chance to step inside the place her mother loved best, after their own home, had been elusive—and what’s more, she had let go of her belief a long time ago.

 

Her steps move her forward without truly any realization on her part and up the pale, white stone steps. They bow in the center, from age and overuse, and she can feel how slick the stone has been rubbed through her blue shoes with their tiny heel.

 

They clack a sound that reverberates through the chapel, the white stone reflecting the light from the stained glass windows. Vivid red stands out, depicting tortured saints, flayed bodies, and hands lifted in prayer in violet vestments. It is beautiful as any chapel from her youth. She walks to the front, all too aware of the sound she makes in the empty worship hall. At the front, Belle takes in the dais, the shrine and the book, placed out of reach of worshippers and onlookers. The book is strange, a palimpsest of the past and present, pages yellowed and curling, their verses hard to make out. She would love to get a better look, but dares not press any closer.

 

“You need a candle, sister?”

 

Belle laughs at that—she’s no sister of the faith—but he was right, “Yes, I do. I need two.” She turns to find a balding man, with a thick black bear holding a tray of skinny prayer candles.

 

“Well?” he asks impatient, “you going to buy one of these or not?”

 

“Oh—yes.” She rummages with her coin purse, setting her bag of books on the cold, stone floor. She looks up, “How much?”

 

He holds up four fingers, “Two each, sister.”

 

Belle quirks an eyebrow at him, “You’re not a cleric, are you?” If he was, in his scowl and his candle tray, he was the strangest cleric she had ever seen.

 

“Oh no—I’m just the custodian for this fine establishment.” He rolls his eyes, “Clerics are at lunch. Won’t be back until evening chants.”

 

She nods and takes the candles, “Thank you.” Turning back to the shrine, she kneels to light the candles and place them with their brothers—all at varying heights, about the front steps to the dais. She has not more faith and yet, habit and practice, hold her in place. She stays on her knees, thinking back to the prayers her mother taught her. She stays longer than she had planned, in silence, mind rather empty, but after offering double— _holy mother, full of grace, curse breaker, full of grace_ —for her mother and now, her father, when she stands, Belle feels lighter than she has felt in some time.

 

She feels nearly put back together.

 

She is surprised, as she leaves, to hear the bell toll overhead. She can only chuckle at herself for losing so much time and meander her way to the city square. They are easy to spot, the crowds cleared, resting before evening, and she smiles, staring at them openly, the father and son, teasing, laughing—even splashing one another—at the city fountain.

 

Yes, she feels nearly put back together again.

 

Then, she thinks of Carlotta. How long can she play at these parts without forgetting it’s play-act? Would that really be such a bad thing?

 

Walking up to them, they don’t notice her until she stands before them, her long shadow darkening them both, “So how did the wool sell?” Belle asks.

 

Staring up at her, more than a little dazed, the man puts a hand to his eyes to shield from the sun, “Oh, same as ever.” Eyeing her bag, he tells her, with little bite to it, “Probably about as much as you dropped on those books, lass.”

 

She laughs openly at that, “Impossible man.”

 

He smiles too, “I have been told I’m a difficult man to love.”

 

The words slip out, his running joke (though Milha had never much cared for it and his father had written it), but Belle simply tilts her head, changing the subject, “They weren’t terribly priced, but they are rather heavy.”

 

Standing, he takes it from her, “We can take it to the wagon. I’ve given coin to a lad to watch our things and the donkey. Then some real food, I think?” he looks at Bae, knowingly, as the boy splashes some water on his hands before wiping them on his fine short pants. The father sighs, “So much for your new clothes.”

 

The boy’s face reddens, “Sorry, papa.”

 

Making their way back through the winding, cobbled streets, walking three abreast, Belle thinks, no, it would not be such a bad thing at all.

 

* * *

 

The tavern is noisy, dirty, and the floor is decidedly _sticky_ , but Baelfire has decided this is to be their stop for the evening meal—and Belle certainly has no intention to turn down a glass of beer. She tells (shouts, more like) Rumpelstiltskin so, _anyplace with libations can’t be all bad,_ when her sweet heel catches in a knot in the wood floor. She barely catches herself on the edge of the bar.

 

She also sends a glass mug falling to the floor, shattering.

 

Gasping, Belle kneels down to assess the damage. Far more than chipped, the damn thing has positively exploded, the noise bring a temporary quiet to the bar before the sounds rise up again in earnest.

 

“It’s just a cup,” Rumpelstiltskin says, rolling his eyes at her wide ones. Turning to the barkeep, with only a touch of exasperation, he asks, “How much for the glass?” With a handful of coin, he dispenses with the round and undisturbed barman—he had seen far worse broken things, and far more often, apparently.

 

The father orders some bread and food, whatever is best that night, and they search for an empty table. ‘Tis late enough that the city has risen, but the promised-night markets are yet to enter into full swing. They have just time enough for a spot of dinner. They finally find a place, along the wall and in line with the door. Belle can feel Rumpelstiltskin’s relief at not needing to wade deeper into the crowds and noise than he must. She does not pity him.

 

She does not pity him, until a head pops in the door and cries, “ _Town players!”_

 

Naturally, the boy is instantly taken with the notion of a little theater. “Oh, papa,” Bae practically bounces in his seat, “can I see?”

 

“Now, son,” he raises an eyebrow, and smirking toward Belle, amending, “not by yourself.” The boy throws up a whoop and a cheer, sliding out of their bench. He races to the door, the sounds of the town slipping in when he slides out the door, “Bae— _wait!”_

 

Shaking his head, he scowls quickly at the maid, and she offers him a smile of her own, raising her new beer mug, “I’ll wait for the food.” She keeps smiling as she watches the father chase after his son, laughing a little to herself. She drinks her barley wine half down, feeling heady with the sounds and feeling of a new place and a new feeling of peace. Opening her new book, (they had left all but this slim volume at the wagon) Belle begins to read for her own desire, for the first time in a long time.

 

Leaning over the back of her bench, a voice speaks right into her ear, “Still as in love with those books of yours as ever, I see.”

 

Her heart drops to her stomach. _Oh gods—it couldn’t be possible._

 

“And marrying up, too—not your mother’s daughter then?” A finger reaches down to toy with the corner of her book, “Miss me?”

 

She snaps the book shut and stands, jostling the table in her haste. She turns to see the man she had hoped long since dead. “Don’t ever speak about my mother?”

 

Doctor Victor Baleine rolls his eyes, “You were the one who told me that, and let the dead defend their own honor.” He gestures between them, “but that would include ourselves, wouldn’t it?”

 

“How did you find me?”

 

He laughs in full then, “Don’t flatter yourself,” taking up her forgotten mug, he takes a generous drink, “this is nothing more than jolly happenstance.”

 

Belle finds that hard to believe, “Then what are you doing here?”

 

His smile takes a sour turn, swallowing down more stolen ale, “As you well know, my dear,” leaning forward, he lowers his voice—though hardly necessary in the bustling bar, “deserters are not well-liked.”

 

“You ran?” she asks, shocked.

 

“Is that such a surprise?” he says, standing, “ _You_ ran.”

 

“What about your—“ she stops, looking around, and drops her voice, ”your poisons?”

 

“What about them?” he asks pointing to her ring, “I decided I wanted to live, as did you, and yet, there’s only a price on my head and none for the inventor and his infamous daughter. Strange, that.” He steps closer, drawing his eyes over her form, “I always knew you were alive.” Running a daring finger across her cheek, he adds, “You should be more careful who you steal from—you were the only one who could have stolen from my medicine chest.”

 

Belle leans away from his touch, “I needed that.”

 

“And I didn’t?”

 

“I thought you were dead.”

 

“No—you hoped, but the camp was in disarray. You couldn’t have known who had breathed their last.”

 

Belle remembers that day, the screams and the blood. She remembers stumbling and half-dragging her father to the edge of the forest. She remembers slipping through the camp, darting between ogres’ legs into the tent of Doctor Baleine and taking what little she could carry.

 

“You know what never made sense to me, after all this time—they only found the inventor’s arm, but that was enough to pronounce he and his daughter dead.” He speaks the words and she can’t help but _remember_. Shaking and her breath growing into heavy pants, Belle remembers the arms that buffeted her own as she worked on war machines, when the medical tent had no need of him (what needs do the dead and near-dead have for a doctor, anyway?).

 

She remembered stealing what she would need to cauterize her father’s lost limb. Belle had thought about taking the large vial of poison, but at the last moment, she had left it behind her—for him.

 

“One idiotic foot soldier spots me and suddenly everyone’s a bounty hunter.” He shrugs, “I did enjoy practicing medicine. Perhaps someday I will make it far enough away that I can open shop once again, but until then I’m just your average lay-about. You, however, have dared put down roots.” Smiling again, he asks, “Have you told your new family of your war record? What did your father have to say about all this? New money by the looks of them—would he take kindly to knowing you’re worn goods?”

 

She knows not her movements, but in an instant she’s grabbed her mug and tossed what little ale was left onto the doctor. Quicker than she had expected, he grabs the offending hand and flips open the latch on the ring. Letting go, a grin spreads across his face, from ear to ear. Chuckling, he leans close to whisper, “Well, I guess the arm _was_ proof enough for him.”

 

_“Belle?”_

 

They both turn to the entrance of the tavern, where Baelfire and Rumpelstiltskin stand, staring at them. The bar, too notes the entrance, but their minds are set to rest: a family squabble, all too common under the roof of a spirits house (and one Rumpelstiltskin knows all too well). They go back to their wine and meat pies.

 

The boy walks over quickly to her side, “Who is this?”

 

The father however, takes his time, “Aye, dearie, is he bothering you?”

 

The doctor smiles and smiles, “Funny you should say that—“

 

“No,” she cuts him off, with more force than necessary, “he isn’t.” Glaring one last time, she turns away to leave the doctor forever.

 

Rumpelstiltskin reaches a hand to her shoulder at the sight of her stricken face, “Belle?” The soft sound in his voice and the tender look in his eye, reach her. She might even cry, she thinks.

 

“How sweet,” the doctor says, all too entertained.

 

With the speed of one who ran in to stop fuses and explosives, between the legs of ogres, Belle pulls a dagger, slim and jagged, from Rumpelstiltskin’s waist beneath his cloak, and turning on her heel, she presses it to Victor’s neck. She walks them backward, until he is up against the table.

 

Stiffening, Rumpelstiltskin shivers with the feeling, the silent scrape of metal against skin, of fingers tightening around the gilded hilt.

 

“ _Belle, don’t_ —“ Baelfire begins, but his father’s hand comes down in front of him, stopping him from moving any closer to their maid.

 

The doctor chuckles, hands up, “Well this is new. Not in the Southlands anymore, are we— _ah—“_

She pushes the knife tight against the skin of his neck. He hisses, leaning back as far as he can, flinching under the bite of it, “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.”

 

“ _You_? Kill me?” he manages to ask, still wearing a smile.

 

“Yes, I’m not going back there.” Not as a corpse, nor as a whore or bride, she thinks, which only leaves as a memory. “If you ever speak of me, I’ll live to find you and kill you.”

 

“I wasn’t such a bad guy, you know— _ah_ —“ She presses enough to draw a speck of blood and he bares his teeth to her, his words straining against the knife, “Okay, okay, why would I even want to tell? I skipped out on my royal summons too—revealing you would mean my own death sentence. Now, step back, before I ruin your little holiday.”

 

Belle does so, suddenly feeling the stares all about the tavern and the tension from the two pairs of eyes standing behind her.

 

The doctor smirks, “See, this has been little more than a pleasant reunion.”

 

She grits her teeth from the desire to cut him down. Instead she turns away and shoves the hilt into Rumpelstiltskin’s chest. She stalks toward the exit; she hears the spinner’s voice call to her, but cannot make out his words.

 

The doctor however, cuts through to her, “Oh, your fiancé’s looking for you.” This stills Belle’s grasp on the door handle. “Though I hardly know why, if he knew just what you’ve been up to.”

 

Her hands clench—she would return to hit him, but she doesn’t, because she might not ever stop, and then there would be a dead body in a bar and far too many questions. Instead, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes, she walks outside into the night.

 

In the half light of sunset, shaking, she tries to remember how to breathe. She jumps when a hand catches her own. Looking down, she finds Baelfire, holding her hand. “Bae?”

 

“Who was that?” the boy questions.

 

“Aye, dearie, who was your friend?” Rumpelstiltskin asks in measured, reserved tones.

 

“He’s not my friend,” the words come out sharper than she had planned, suddenly hearing the sounds of the city, the songs of summer dances. Sighing, she tries for something softer, “Can we get out of here?”

 

Nodding, “Aye, lead the way.”


End file.
